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HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 


v<; 


HARVARD 
THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 


EDITED  FOR  THE 


FACULTY  OF  DIVINITY 


IN 


HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


BY 


GEORGE  F.  MOORE,  JAMES  H.  ROPES 
KIRSOPP  LAKE 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

Oxford  University  Press 

I921 


HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 

X 


RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 


FREDERICK  C.  CONYBEARE 

HONORARY  FELLOW 
UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

Oxford  Univeesitx  Press 

I92I 


COPYRIGHT,  19  2 1 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


PRINTED    AT    THE    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  IINITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PREFACE 

This  work  was  begun  in  1914  and  completed  nearly  as  it  stands 
early  in  1917,  about  the  time  when  the  Russian  Revolution 
began.  It  is  too  early  yet  to  trace  the  fortunes  of  the  Russian 
sects  during  this  latest  period,  for  the  contradictory  news  of 
the  struggle  is  not  to  be  trusted;  and  few,  if  any,  know  what 
is  really  happening  or  has  happened  in  unhappy  Russia. 
Since,  however,  the  future  is  largely  moulded  by  the  past, 
I  trust  that  my  work  may  be  of  some  use  to  those  who  sincerely 
desire  to  understand  and  trace  out  the  springs  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. 

It  is  not  a  work  of  original  research.  I  have  only  read  a 
number  of  Russian  authorities  and  freely  exploited  them.  I 
have  especially  used  the  History  of  the  Russian  Raskol  by 
Ivanovski  (two  volumes,  Kazan,  1895  and  1897).  He  was 
professor  of  the  subject  in  the  Kazan  Seminary  between  1880 
and  1895.  He  tries  to  be  fair,  and  in  the  main  succeeds  in 
being  so.  Subbotin,  indeed,  in  a  letter  to  Pobedonostzev, 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod,  who  had  consulted  him  about 
the  best  manuals  on  the  subject,  wrote  slightingly  of  the  work; 
but  I  think  unfairly,  for  the  only  concrete  faults  he  finds  with 
it  are,  first,  that  the  author  allowed  himself  to  use  the  phrase; 
'the  historical  Christ,'  which  had  to  his  ears  a  rationalist  ring; 
and  secondly,  that  he  devoted  too  little  space  to  the  Moscow 
Synods  of  1654  to  1667. 

Another  Russian  work  I  have  transferred  almost  bodily 
to  my  pages.  This  is  the  extremely  rare  brochure  of  I.  Uzov 
or  Yusov,  Uusskie  Dissidenty,  St.  Petersburg,  1881.  This 
is  a  work  of  impartial  and  independent  criticism,  and  valu- 
able for  its  numerous  and  well  chosen  citations  from  earlier 
works  on  the  subject.  In  many  cases  where  I  have  identified 
these  citations  I  have  found  them  accurate. 

After  these  two  authors,  I  am  most  indebted  to  the  works 
of  J.  V.  Liprandi,  of  H.  I.  Kostomarov,  of  Mehukov,  of  Maca- 
rius,  archbishop  of  Moscow,  author  of  a  History  of  the  Raskol, 


PREFACE 

published  in  1889,  of  Kelsiev,  of  whose  collectanea  about  the 
sects  several  volumes  were  printed  in  London  between  1860 
and  1870,  of  Th.  Livanov,  of  our  own  William  Palmer,  the 
Historian  of  the  Patriarch  Nikon,  of  Paul  Miliukov,  of  Father 
Palmieri,  author  of  an  Italian  History  of  the  Russian  Church, 
of  0.  Novitski,  and  of  a  few  other  authors  whose  names  I 
have  given  in  my  pages. 

It  remains  for  me  to  express  my  gratitude  to  those  who  have 
helped  me  in  my  work;  first  and  foremost  to  the  Harvard 
Faculty  of  Divinity  for  their  adoption  of  it ;  to  the  Librarian 
of  the  Widener  Library  for  the  generous  way  he  granted  me 
every  facility  for  study;  to  Dr.  R.  P.  Blake  for  reading  the  final 
proof-sheets,  and  giving  my  readers  the  benefit  of  his  great 
knowledge  of  the  Russian  language;  and  to  Professors  George 
Foot  Moore  and  Kirsopp  Lake  for  reading  my  work  in  advance. 
If  there  is  any  good  order  in  my  presentation  of  the  subject, 
it  is  chiefly  due  to  the  latter  of  my  two  friends. 

F.   C.   CONYBEARE. 

Oxford,  1921. 


LIST  OF  RUSSIAN  PERIODICALS  CITED 


BaSjiioTeKa  p^jisi  ^Tenia  ;    0.  Hexep-      Library  for  reading;   St.  Petersburg. 

6ypn>. 
BpaxcKoe  Cjiobo 
BpeMH 

B-fecTHHRTb  EBporrti;  C.  IleTepfiypirb 
BicTHHK'b  MocKOBCKoft  3napxiH 
rojiocb  CTapoo(3pH^n;a 

^pyrb    HCTHHBI 

jZIymenojiesHoe  HxeHie 


The  Brotherly  Word. 

Time. 

Messenger  of  Europe;   St.  Petersburg. 

Messenger  of  the  See  of  Moscow. 

The  Voice  of  the  Old  believer. 

The  Friend  of  Truth. 

Edifying  Reading. 


JKypnaji-b  KasKascKoft  3napxiH 
SnaHie 

HsB^CTin  HMnepaTopcKaro  06iri;ecTBa 
HcTopin  H  7I,peBHOCTeH  npn   Moc- 

KOBCKOM'b  yHHBepCHTexi 
Hc6opHHK1> 

HcTHHa 

MnccioHepcKoe  Odosp'feHie 

HeBCKifi    CSopHHKTb 
0630  p'b 

IlepMCKaa  3napxiajii>Haa  Fasexa 
IIpaBocjraBHBia  Becfe^u 
IIpaBocjiaBHoe  Odoap^Hie 
IIpaBOCJiaBHHH  Co6ec'fe;iHHK'b 
npaBoc^aBHMH  jnyTeBOAHTe.o. 

^  I  OliyTHHK1> 

HpHjioaceHie  Kt  JKypnajiy  KajiyHCCKofi 

3napxiH 
PyccKia  ApxHBXi 
PyccKia  B'Scth 
PyccKiH  Mip-b 
PyccKaa  CiapHHa 
Cjiobo 

Cjiobo  IIpaB^H 
CoBpeMeHHBia  JT'^TonncH 
CxapoodpH^eni'b 
Cxapoodpa^iecKiii  BicxHHK'b 
Cxpana 

CxpaHHHKXj 

TpyAH    KicBCKOH    ^XOBHOfi 

AKa^eMin 
XpHcxiaHCKia  ^xenia 


The  Affair. 

Journal  of  the  Caucasian  See. 

Knowledge. 

The  Proceedings  of  the  Imperial  Society 

of   History  and  Antiquities  at  the 

University  of  Moscow. 
The  Elect  One. 
Truth. 

Missionary  Review. 
Neva  Collection. 
Review. 

Gazette  of  the  Perus  See. 
Orthodox  Conversations. 
Orthodox  Review. 
Orthodox  Conversationalist. 

Orthodox  Traveller. 

Supplement  to  the  Journal  of  the  See 

of  Kaluga. 
Russian  Archive. 
Russian  News. 
Russian  World. 
Russian  Antiquity. 
The  Word. 
The  Word  of  Truth. 
Contemporary  Chronicles. 
The  Old-behever. 
The  Old-behever  Messenger. 
The  Country. 
The  Wanderer. 
Works     of     the     Kiev     Ecclesiastical 

Academy. 
Christian  Readings. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

List  of  Russian  Periodicals  Cited vii 

Introduction 1 

PART  I 
THE  OLD  BELIEVERS  OF  GREAT  RUSSIA 

Chapter  I.     The  Conditions  leading  to  the  Schism     ....      13 

Introduction.  The  Struggle  against  Centralization.  Russia  and 
Tartar  Influence.  Russian  Ritualism  and  Liturgical  Controversy. 
Nikon.  Nikon's  Reforms.  The  Council  of  Stoglav.  The  position 
of  affairs  in  1655.  The  Fall  of  Nikon.  From  the  Fall  of  Nikon  to 
1666.     The  Council  of  1666. 

Appendix  to  Chapter  I       69 

P.  Aurelio  Palmieri's  Account  of  the  Russian  Clergy. 

Chapter  II.     The  Early  Days  of  the  Schism       79 

The  Rebellion  at  the  Solovetski  Monastery.  The  Revolt  of  1682. 
The  Ukaze  of  1685  and  its  Results.     Tsardom  and  Antichrist. 

Chapter  III.     The  Dispersion 101 

The  Settlements  of  the  Popovtsy.  The  Search  for  Priests.  Epipha- 
nius,  the  First  Raskol  Bishop.  The  Uniat  Movement.  The  Conces- 
sions of  Paul  I.  The  Persecution  of  the  Raskol  by  Nicholas  I.  The 
Austrian  Hierarchy.     The  General  Character  of  the  Popovtsy. 

Chapter  IV.     The  Bezpopovtsy  or  Priestless  Sect      ....    151 

The  Various  Settlements  of  the  Bezpopovtsy.  The  Stranniki.  The 
Netovtsi  and  the  Self-Baptizers.  The  Prayerless  and  the  Sighers. 
The  Intellectual  Development  of  the  Bezpopovtsy.  Opinion  on 
Priesthood  and  Sacraments. 

Chapter  V.     The  Question  of  Marriage 189 

Marriage  among  the  Stranniki.  Varieties  of  Opinion  among  the 
Bezpoptovtsy.  Theodosius  Vasilev.  Ivan  Alexiev.  I.  A.  Kovylin. 
The  Present  Situation. 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter  VI.    The  Organization,  Legal  Position,  and  Numbers 

OF  the  Raskol 215 

Introduction.  The  Communes  of  the  Vyg.  The  Communes  of 
Sopelok.  General  Organization.  Legal  Position  of  the  Raskol. 
Before  Peter  I.  Peter  I.  Peter  III  to  Alexander  I.  Nicholas  I  and 
his  Successors,  to  1903.  The  Reforms  of  1903.  The  Number  of  the 
Raskol.  Controversial  Propaganda  against  the  Raskol.  The  PubU- 
cations  of  the  Raskol  in  Modern  Times. 


PART  II 
THE  RATIONALIST  SECTS  OF  SOUTH  RUSSIA 

Introduction 261 

Chapter  I.    The  Dukhobortsy       266 

Chapter  II.    The  Molokanye 289 

The  Evidence  of  their  Confession  of  Faith.    The  Accounts  of  Uzov, 
StoUov  and  Kostomarov.     Ivanovski's  account. 

Chapter  III.    The  Communists,  Stundists  and  other  Small 

Sects 327 

The  Communists.    The  Righthand  Brotherhood  or  Zion's  Tidings. 
The  Stundists. 

PART  III 
THE  MYSTIC  SECTS 

Chapter  I.    The  Khlysty       339 

Chapter  II.    The  Skoptsy 363 


RUSSIAN   DISSENTERS 


INTRODUCTION 

One  cannot  better  approach  the  study  of  the  Russian 
Dissenters  or  Raskol  (i.  e.  division,  schism)  than  by  repeating 
the  words  with  which  I.  Uzov  begins  his  work  upon  them. 
They  are  these:  ''Haxthausen  need  not  have  warned  Russia 
how  serious  a  peril  to  her  security  her  dissenters  formed, 
nor  have  warned  her  to  have  regard  thereto ;  ^  as  if  in  order  to 
compass  their  destruction  she  had  not  all  along  resorted  to 
the  auto-da-fe,  the  knout,  gallows  and  every  sort  of  slow  and 
painful  death.  Mindful  of  the  proverb:  'Beat  a  man  not 
with  a  stick,  but  with  roubles,'  the  Government  has  imposed 
on  them  double  taxes  and  curtailed  their  civil  rights.  Every 
petty  official  has  been  at  liberty  to  help  himself  out  of  their 
pockets,  and  yet  dissent  has  not  weakened  or  diminished; 
on  the  contrary  it  has  struck  roots  ever  deeper  and  stronger 
into  the  life  of  the  people."  When  at  last  the  Government 
realized  that  the  old  system  of  frank  and  fearless  extermina- 
tion could  not  stand  criticism,  it  was  pretended  that  the  best 
way  of  getting  rid  of  them  was  to  encourage  among  them 
reading  and  writing  and  general  enlightenment.  It  may  be 
that  if  the  Tsar's  Government  had  given  all  its  citizens  at  the 
least  a  middle  class  education.  Dissent  in  the  form  in  which 
it  now  exists  might  be  weakened.  But  this  was  never  done. 
Such  instruction  as  was  usually  reckoned  to  be  good  enough 
for  peasants  was  not  of  a  kind  to  induce  them  to  give  up 
dissent,  as  is  shewn  by  the  fact  that  most  dissenters  had  al- 
ready received  it.  We  have  the  testimony  of  an  official, 
Liprandi,  commissioned  by  the  Government  of  Nicholas  I 
to  hold  an  inquisition  into  them,  that  "the  range  of  their 

^  Aug.  Haxthausen.    Researches  into  Inner  Life  of  the  People  of  Russia.    Han- 
nover, 1847,  i,  415.    A.  H.  aims  his  remark  at  the  Dukhobortsy  only. 

1 


2  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

activity  is  not  lessened  but  extended  by  education."  ^  Count 
Stenbok,  another  official  set  to  study  them  by  the  Govern- 
ment, affirms  that  "Dissent  perpetually  spreads  and  becomes 
stronger,"  that,  "notwithstanding  a  weakening  of  religious 
interest,  their  adherents  are  no  weaker  as  a  body,"  and  that 
"all  measures  taken  against  them,  by  the  government  are  up  to 
the  present  unavaihng."  -  An  anonymous  authority,  S.  M.  V., 
states  as  a  fact  fully  known,  that  "as  of  old  dissent  flourished 
upon  persecution  in  secret,  so  now  with  freedom  (?)  it  flourishes 
in  the  open."  ^  We  could  produce  many  more  attestations 
of  the  kind,  but  rest  content  with  the  above  in  order  to  avoid 
reiteration. 

Uzov  infers  that  Dissent  flourished  just  the  same,  no  matter 
whether  the  Government  was  strict  or  lenient;  and  that  it  did 
so  proved  that  it  is  not  engendered  by  temporary  or  transient 
causes,  but  is  founded  on  deep  cravings  and  satisfies  daily 
spiritual  needs  of  individuals. 

Yet  "neither  Russian  administration,  nor  Russian  poHte 
society  understands  thoroughly  what  sort  of  thing  Dissent 
is";^  and  this  not  from  want  of  facts  accumulated  by  students, 
but  from  their  onesidedness.  By  preference  they  have  di- 
rected their  attention  to  the  ceremonial  pecuUarities  which 
distinguish  dissent  from  orthodoxy,  without  remarking,  nay 
rather,  without  wishing  to  remark,  that  the  dissenters'  out- 
look is  framed  on  quite  other  principles  than  those  which 
underhe  our  present  social  structure. 

"We  beUeve,"  says  Uzov,  "that  the  period  of  social  experi- 
ments made  on  the  inarticulate  masses  is  drawing  to  a  close, 
and  that  we  are  being  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  ameUora- 
tions  of  a  community  must  be  based  on  a  profound  study  of 
the  nature  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  because  in  no 
other  case  can  reforms  reap  any  success. 

"The  intellectual  and  moral  characteristics  of  our  people 
are  pecuUarly  prominent  in  the  Raskol;    and  that  is  why  a 

*  Lectures  at  Imperial  Historical  Society  in  Moscow  University  for  1870,  Bk. 
2,  by  Liprandi,  p.  83. 

2  Kelsiev,  IV.  325.     Stenbok  had  in  view  in  particular  the  Stranniki. 

3  Strannik,  1871,  2nd  Art.  S.  M.  V.  p.  93. 

*  P.  Melnikov,  Treatise  {Pismo)  on  the  Raskol. 


INTRODUCTION  a 

study  of  it  is  indispensable  for  any  statesman  who  desires  to 
pursue  with  even  tenour  and  without  groping  or  guesswork^ 
the  pathways  of  his  activities  and  enterprises." 

I  have  begun  my  study  of  Russian  dissent  with  the  above 
words  of  Uzov,  because  they  rightly  insist  on  the  importance 
of  understanding  the  social,  moral  and  religious  characteristics 
of  a  great  people  in  order  to  obtain  a  general  comprehension 
of  its  origin  and  character. 

Dissent,  by  which  I  render  the  word  Raskol,  implies,  like 
our  own  word  'nonconformist,'  the  existence  of  a  dominant 
and  established  Church  against  whose  doctrines,  rites,  and 
oppressive  tendencies  (inherent  in  every  such  Church)  the 
dissenters  are  permanently  in  revolt.  In  Russia  this  Church 
knows  itself  under  the  title  of  Orthodox,  and  has  been  from 
its  earliest  age,  when  the  first  metropoUtan,  Leontius  was  dis- 
patched from  Byzantium  with  a  cortege  of  Greek  bishops  by 
the  patriarch  Nicholas  Chrysoverghes  (983-996),  a  purely 
exotic,  imported  and  foreign  product  in  all  that  regards  beUefs, 
disciphne  and  ceremonies. 

In  this  respect  it  is  in  strong  contrast  with  the  old  Armenian 
Church,  in  which,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  its  doctrine  and  rites 
were  of  Greek  or  Syriac  origin,  there  nevertheless  remained 
much  that  was  racy  of  the  soil,  in  particular  the  institution  of 
animal  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  living,  for  the  repose  of  the 
souls  of  the  dead,  and  for  the  support  (by  the  assignment  to 
them  of  the  Levitical  portions  of  the  victims)  of  the  priest- 
hood. The  Christian  priest  of  Armenia  was  the  direct  heir 
of  the  pagan  priest  who  preceded  him;  the  Armenian  patriarch 
was  for  long  generations  a  scion  of  the  Arsacid  house  which 
occupied  the  throne,  and  when  that  throne  finally  disappeared 
in  the  fifth  century  the  Patriarch,  or  CathoUcos,  as  he  was 
styled,  retained  a  large  portion  of  the  loyalty  which  had 
upheld  it  against  the  combined  assaults  of  Roman  Emperor 
and  Sassanid  oppressor.  Even  as  late  as  the  crusading  epoch 
the  patriarchs  of  the  Armenian  Kingdom  of  Cilicia  boasted 
themselves  to  be  of  the  old  Arsacid  hneage.  Ecclesiastical 
ofhce  in  Armenia  was  based  on  heredity  rather  than  on  charis- 


4  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

matic  gifts,  and  none  that  did  not  belong  to  the  old  priestly 
families  could  be  ordained. 

In  Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  though  the  old  pagan  supersti- 
tions long  survived,  and  survive  to-day  in  popular  magic  and 
song,  the  orthodox  Church  never  possessed  such  an  odour  of 
pagan  antiquity  as  the  Armenian.  It  was  in  no  sense  a  native 
product;  and  if  the  priesthood  has  tended  to  become  heredi- 
tary, this  is  because  the  village  popes  began  to  own  their 
manses,  and  the  difficulty  of  providing  an  incoming  parish 
priest  with  a  residence  was  most  easily  met  by  choosing  his 
son  to  succeed  him.  It  was  not  because  sacerdotal  gifts  ran 
in  the  blood  of  certain  old  famiUes.  Of  the  twenty-four 
successors  of  Leontius,  the  first  Russian  metropohtan  (who 
died  in  1004  or  1008),  there  are  barely  two  or  three  during  the 
two  hundred  and  thirty  years  that  preceded  the  Mongol  con- 
quest of  Russia  that  do  not  bear  Greek  names,  and  they  were 
all  nominees  of  a  patriarch  of  Byzantium  who  regarded  Kiev 
and  Moscow  as  mere  provinces  of  his  own  church,  or  of  a 
Greek  emperor  who  regarded  the  rulers  of  Moscow  as  his 
vassals. 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  Russian  Church  resembled  the 
Armenian,  as  it  did  other  early  Christian  Churches,  namely  in 
the  predominance  of  the  monasteries.  Greek  asceticism  took 
firm  root  among  the  Slavs.  The  convent,  richly  endowed 
with  fields,  villages  and  serfs,  was  the  teaching  church;  and 
until  Peter  the  Great  forbade  its  inmates  the  use  of  pens  and 
ink,  it  was  the  home  of  all  the  intellectual  work,  and  of  all  the 
wTiters  of  the  land.  The  parish  priests,  who  must  be  married 
men,  have  never  counted.  They  are  an  inferior  order  of  beings, 
in  spite  of  their  white  habihments.  The  higher  clergy  and 
episcopate  have  been  recruited  among  the  cowled  and  black- 
coated  monks.  Peter  the  Great  made  a  fierce  attack  on  the 
monasteries,  raised  the  age  of  the  noviciate  to  thirty,  reduced 
the  number  of  monks  by  half,  made  most  of  them  work  with 
their  hands,  denied  them  paper  and  ink  in  order  to  prevent 
them  from  describing  liim  as  Antichrist,  filled  their  houses 
with  his  discharged  soldiers,  subjected  them  to  a  thousand 
indignities;  but  even  he  did  not  venture  to  break  with  the  rule 


INTRODUCTION  5 

that  every  bishop  must  be  a  monk.  This  exclusion  of  the 
"white"  clergy  from  all  positions  of  emolument  and  authority 
has  created  for  centuries  a  chasm  in  the  ranks  of  the  clergy; 
and  under  the  rule  of  the  Tsars  the  Russian  bishop  was  a  mere 
courtier  and  functionary  of  the  state ;  he  stood  for  absolutism, 
for  oppression  in  every  form  and  of  every  grade  of  society; 
he  was  a  spaniel  fawning  on  the  Government  which  distrib- 
uted the  sweets  of  office.  He  detested  above  all  things  light, 
liberty,  free  growth  and  living  development  of  institutions; 
he  was  a  parasite,  but,  alas,  he  was  the  Russian  Church,  an 
incarnation  of  Byzantinism.  It  is  important  to  grasp  this 
distinction  between  the  parish  clergy  and  the  monks.  Possi- 
bly under  the  Mongol  regime  in  Russia  which  began  in  1237 
the  monasteries  were  hearths  of  Slav  patriotism,  but  even  in 
1294  under  the  patriarch  John  XII  the  secular  clergy  were 
already  loud  in  their  complaints  of  the  exactions  of  the  bishops. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  great  schism  of  which  the  Raskol  is  the 
permanent  fruit  was  largely  due  to  friction  between  the  parish 
clergy  and  the  monkish  agents  of  the  absolutist  and  centralis- 
ing government  of  Moscow. 

Historians  of  Russian  dissent,  no  matter  to  what  school 
they  belong,  whether,  hke  Uzov,  sympathetic,  or,  like  Prof.  N. 
Ivanovski,^  partisans  of  the  Holy  Synod,  agree  in  dividing  it 
into  three  classes,  or  categories,  of  Old  rituahsts  or  Old  beUevers, 
RationaUsts  and  Mystics. 

Ivanovski  seeks  to  load  upon  the  dissenters  and  lift  off 
the  Church,  of  which  he  is  a  modern  spokesman,  the  onus  of 
blame  for  the  great  Russian  schism  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago.  He  sets  undue  store  by  the  old  appellation  of  the 
Raskol  of  Staroobryadets,  "Old  rituahst."  He  would  have  us 
beUeve  that  the  schism  was  created  by  ignorant  people  who 
could  not  distinguish  between  what  was  "of  faith,"  and  what 
was  unessential,  such  as  matters  of  discipline  and  posture  and 
vestment. 

The  Old  rituahsts  took  their  rise  in  the  XVIIth  Century 
by  way  of  protest  against  the  correction  of  chiu'ch  books  and 

1  History  of  the  Raskol,  1897,  Introduction,  pp.  3  ff. 


6  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

rites  under  the  patriarch  Nikon.  Their  essential  characteristic 
lay  in  their  confusion  of  rite  or  ceremony  with  dogma,  and  in 
the  attribution  to  ritual  and  to  the  letter  of  the  prayer  books 
of  the  Russian  Church  of  a  fixt  invariabihty.  Old  rituahsm 
therefore  consists  in  the  upholding  of  the  rites  in  vogue  before 
the  time  of  Nikon,  and  rests  on  the  false  assumption  that  no 
other  rites  but  these  went  back  to  the  age  of  Prince  Vladimir 
under  whom  Christianity  was  adopted  as  the  national  rehgion. 
In  fact,  argued  the  dissenters,  the  rites  introduced  by  Nikon 
were  new  rites.  They  acted  in  separating  themselves  from 
the  Church  as  if  orthodoxy  was  bound  up  with  the  preservation 
of  certain  rites,  and  precluded  all  change  in  matters  unessential. 
For  example,  worshippers  are  to  prostrate  themselves  exactly 
as  of  old,  to  keep  exactly  the  same  fasts  and  in  the  same  way; 
even  old  customs  in  daily  life  are  to  be  maintained  as  if  a 
reUgious  interest  was  subserved  in  doing  so.  In  church,  for 
example,  the  same  garb  is  to  be  worn  as  was  anciently  in 
vogue.  In  all  such  ways,  Ivanovski  concludes,  these  sectaries 
cling  to  hfe  as  it  was  in  the  XVIIth  Century. 

It  is  probably  true  that  the  Raskol  regarded  such  unessen- 
tials  with  what  to-day  would  be  considered  superstitious 
veneration.  But  did  the  Patriarch  Nikon  and  the  innovating 
section  of  the  Russian  Church,  which,  having  the  Tsar  and  his 
army  on  their  side,  were  able  to  enforce  their  will  upon  the  con- 
servatives, attach  less  weight  to  them?  If  the  Raskol  confused 
mere  rites  with  dogma,  did  their  antagonists  not  do  the  same? 
If  the  points  at  issue  were  so  insignificant,  why  could  not  the 
party  of  Nikon  allow  these  simple  folk  to  keep  the  reUgious 
customs  and  forms  of  words  which  from  time  inomemorial 
had  been  in  vogue,  and  be  content  themselves  in  their  own 
superior  enhghtenment  to  adopt  the  new  and,  as  they  —  in 
most  cases  falsely  —  imagined,  correcter  ones  in  their  own 
churches?  Instead  of  saving  the  position  by  a  little  well-timed 
tolerance,  the  Patriarch  Nikon  resorted  to  the  knout,  the 
sword,  the  stake;  and  getting  together  a  council  of  his  parti- 
sans, excommunicated  and  anathematized  his  opponents  as 
heretics  en  masse.  Now  it  is,  as  Ivanovski  admits,  quite 
uncanonical   for   orthodox   churchmen   to   have   recourse   to 


INTRODUCTION  7 

these  extreme  methods  of  argument,  unless  the  unchange- 
able dogmas  of  the  Christian  rehgion  be  at  stake  and  directly 
impugned.  It  is  evident  then  that  the  Russian  Authorities 
made  the  changes  as  much  a  matter  of  faith  as  did  the  Raskol, 
who  at  least  had  on  their  side  that  prescription  of  antiquity 
to  which  Christian  Fathers  like  TertulUan  and  Augustine 
regularly  appealed  as  decisive  against  innovators  and  heretics. 
The  Fathers  of  Nicea  in  325  professed  to  base  their  decision 
on  the  rule:  "Let  what  is  ancient  prevail."  The  Raskol 
have  never  appealed  to  any  other  canon.  They  are  accused 
of  'bhnd  adherence  to  antique  details.'  Was  the  adherence 
of  Nikon  to  modern  details  any  less  bUnd? 

Quite  other  is  the  basis  of  the  antagonism  to  the  Church  of 
what  Ivanovski  labels  the  RationaUst  sects,  viz.  the  Dukho- 
bortsy — whose  name  is  a  translation  of  the  Greek  Trvevfiaroiidxot. 
or  battlers  with  the  Spirit,  but  which  is  usually  rendered  in 
Enghsh  Spirit-wrestlers,  in  the  sense  of  men  in  whom  the 
Holy  Spirit  wrestles  for  utterance;  the  Molokanye  or  milk- 
drinking  sect;  the  recent  sect  of  Stundists  and  some  others. 
These  sects,  in  his  opinion, —  an  opinion  which,  as  we  shall 
see  later  on,  is  erroneous  —  reflect  an  intrusion  about  the  year 
1700  of  the  ideas  of  Western  Europe.  He  terms  them  ration- 
ahst  because  they  reject  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  claim 
a  hberty  to  interpret  Scripture  as  they  Uke.  The  Old  ritualists 
attach  importance  to  ceremonies;  the  ' RationaUsts'  repudiate 
them  and  reject  all  the  externals  of  worship,  sacraments,  ikons 
or  holy  pictures  and  rehcs.  None  of  these  aids  to  devotion 
appeal  to  them.  Of  fasting  in  the  sense  of  a  rejection  of  this 
or  that  diet  they  will  not  hear;  and  their  worship  consists 
wholly  of  prayer  and  singing  of  hymns.  They  call  themselves 
'Spiritual  Christians'  in  token  that  they  set  no  value  on  the 
outer  husks  of  worship,  but  only  on  the  kernel  of  rehgious  faith. 

The  third  group  is  the  Khlysty  or  flagellants,  of  which  the 
Skoptsy  or  self-emasculators  are  an  offshoot,  dated  by  Ivanovski 
at  the  middle  of  the  XVIIth  Century,  though  he  admits  their 
origin  to  be  obscure  and  that  some  features  of  their  teaching 
go  back  to  remote  antiquity,  to  paganism  and  old  Christian 
heresies.    They  were  never,  hke  the  Old  rituaUsts,  champions 


8  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  externals,  of  the  letter,  nor  like  the  Molokanye,  of  the  human 
reason;  but  are  mystics,  that  is  creatures  of  irresponsible 
feeling,  believing  in  the  immediate  relationship  of  man  to  God 
to  the  extent  of  accounting  themselves  Gods,  Christs,  Prophets, 
divinely  born,  soothsayers.  These  sects  enshroud  themselves 
in  almost  impenetrable  secrecy,  but  in  presence  of  strangers 
call  themselves  orthodox  Christians. 

Uzov's  own  prehminary  account  of  the  first  two  divisions  is  as 
follows,  and  he  claims  to  adopt  the  terminology  of  the  sec- 
taries themselves:  "The  first  division  comprises  the  Old 
beUevers;  the  second  the  Spiritual  Christians.  The  Old 
behevers  have  spht  up  into  two  chief  groups,  the  Popovtsy, 
or  priest-sect,  and  the  priestless,  or  Bezpopovtsy  {Pope  in 
Russian  =  priest).  The  latter  are  divided  into  minor  sects, 
the  Pomorskiye,  Spasovo,  Thedosyevo,  Phihppovo  or  Lipovany, 
Wanderers  (Stranniki  or  Beguny),  and  finally  the  Prayerless 
Ones.  And  in  this  hst  we  only  enumerate  the  stronger  and 
typical  sects  omitting  the  minor  ones.  The  most  extreme 
and  typical  of  these  is  that  of  the  Wanderers  (Stranniki)  and 
particularly  the  Prayerless,  who  closely  resemble  the  Spiritual 
Christians  and  even  so  call  themselves.  Many  writers,  indeed, 
who  are  ill  acquainted  with  the  Prayerless  doctrine  refer  them 
to  that  group;  nevertheless  their  derivation  from  the  Old 
behevers  is  so  indehbly  stamped  upon  them,  that  those  famihar 
with  their  teaching  have  no  difficulty  in  recognizing  in  them 
all  the  characteristic  marks  of  the  'Old  behef.'" 

"The  'Spiritual  Christians'  are  divided  into  Dukhobortsy, 
Molokanye,  Communists,  and  Evangelicals  or  Stundists. 

"Over  and  above  these  main  groups  there  remains,"  says 
Uzov,  "a  diminutive  residuum,  the  Khlysty  and  Skoptsy." 
This  group  is  very  small  and  looked  askance  at  by  the  common 
people  who  have  given  it  the  appellation  of  the  'dark'  sect  (cf. 
Liprandi,  p.  104), —  a  sect  which  we  may  better  define  as  being 
of  a  mystico-rehgious  character.  The  sects  forming  this 
group  have  no  future;  their  propaganda  amounts  to  nothing, 
notwithstanding  their  age  (for  they  were  derived  from  Byzan- 
tium along  with  Orthodoxy),  and  notwithstanding  that  they 
are  the  only  group  of  Raskol  which  can  be  called  universal. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

In  it  courtiers  are  found  side  by  side  with  peasants,  Finns  with 
Great  and  Little  Russians.  The  conunon  people  have  vari- 
ous names  for  them  according  to  the  places  where  they  are 
found,  for  example,  Liads,  Vertuns,  Medoviks,  Khanzhas, 
Kladentsy,  Kupidons,  Shaloputs,  etc.  The  chief  danger  of 
this  group,  according  to  Ministers  of  the  Interior,  is  that  it 
venerates  "some  of  the  Emperors,  that  have  already  passed 
away  into  another  Ufe,  as  being  still  alive";  in  other  words 
"assumes  the  existence  of  a  second  lawful  ruler."  This  ruler 
was  Peter  III  (Liprandi  pp.  93  and  95).  The  only  intelhgible 
basis  of  such  a  behef  is  to  be  found  in  an  express  ukase  of  Peter 
III  of  Jan.  20,  1762,  to  the  effect  that  the  Raskolniks  (dissen- 
ters) are  not  to  be  persecuted,  because  there  "exist  in  the 
Empire  not  only  men  of  other  faiths,  such  as  Mahomedans  and 
idolaters,  but  also  dissenting  Christians  whose  superstition  and 
obstinacy  are  such,  that  it  is  hopeless  to  convert  them  by 
duress  and  ill-treatment,  from  which  they  would  only  flee 
across  the  frontiers."  ^ 

It  is  moreover  clear  that  the  Old  believers  of  both  groups 
belong  to  Great  Russia,  and  that  Moscow  is  their  centre  of 
origin,  while  the  Spiritual  Christians  belong  to  the  South,  to 
Little  Russia  —  the  Ukraine, —  and  to  Kiev  rather  than 
Moscow.  It  has  therefore  seemed  best  to  divide  the  discus- 
sion into  three  parts,  dealing  with  (1)  the  Old  believers  of 
Great  Russia,  (2)  the  Spiritual  Christians  of  South  Russia, 
(3)  the  Mystics. 

^  Cf.  Collection  of  Statutes  regarding  the  Raskol,  Bk.  1,  p.  586." 


Part  I 

THE  OLD  BELIEVERS 

OF  GREAT  RUSSIA 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CONDITIONS   LEADING  TO   THE   SCHISM 

No  Church  historian  believes  that  great  schisms  are  wholly- 
due  to  the  insignificant  and  unmeaning  dogmatic  problems 
and  differences  to  which  ecclesiastical  writers  attribute 
them.  Who,  for  example,  will  believe  that  it  was  the  question 
whether  the  Spirit  proceeded  from  both  Father  and  Son  or  from 
Father  alone  which  caused  the  great  schism  of  East  and  West? 
It  is  obvious  to  a  student  of  Mommsen  or  Gibbon  that  the  real 
cause  was  a  difference  of  national  temperament  which  divided 
the  Roman  Empire  into  two  halves,  Greek  and  Latin.  Long 
before  the  advent  of  the  new  religion,  there  had  arisen  a  funda- 
mental antagonism  between  the  Greek  and  Romans  in  matters 
political,  moral,  and  intellectual.  Similarly  the  schism  between 
Byzantium  and  the  Armenians  was  the  expression  of  a  desire 
for  independence,  an  instinct  of  home-rule  on  the  part  of  the 
latter.  They  wanted  an  excuse  for  quarreling  with  the  Greeks 
and  found  it  in  religion,  and  in  the  Armenian  Fathers  it  is  not 
uncommon  to  find  the  boast  that  they  adopted  such  and  such 
a  fashion  in  religion  in  order  to  ''raise  a  hedge"  between  them- 
selves and  the  Greeks.  The  German  and  Anglican  reforma- 
tions, so-called,  were  not  motived  by  dogmatic,  nor  even  by 
ritual  quarrels.  Both  nations  wanted  to  eliminate  Italian 
clergy  and  to  say  their  prayers  in  the  vernacular,  above  all  to 
keep  their  spare  cash  at  home  instead  of  sending  it  abroad  as 
Peter's  pence. 

Such  considerations  suggest  that  in  the  genesis  of  the  Old 
beUevers,  social  and  political  causes  must  have  co-operated 
with  those  on  which  Russian  churchmen  insist,  and  several 
Russian  historians  have  given  due  weight  to  these.  Kosto- 
marov  ^  for  example  wrote  as  follows : 

"As  we  survey  the  history,  phenomena  and  structure  of  the 
rehgious  life  of  the  Russian  people  in  the  past,  and  try  to  seize 
its  characteristics,  enduring  even  up  to  our  own  age,  we  are 

1  Messenger  of  Europe,  1871.     No.  4,  April,  p.  471  and  p.  480. 

13 


14  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

struck  by  the  fact  that  there  hardly  ever  was,  in  all  Christen- 
dom, a  land  less  inclined  to  religious  movements,  less  prepared 
for  them  than  Russia,  especially  Great  Russia.  That  such 
movements  were  not  in  keeping  with  the  coldness  of  their 
temper  in  such  matters,  is  often  revealed  in  our  history.  We 
hear  nothing  but  complaints  of  the  alienation  of  the  people 
from  the  Church,  of  its  indifference  thereto,  of  its  failure  to 
live  a  Christian  life.  .  .  . 

"It  is  the  last  thing  one  would  have  expected,  that,  among 
people  whose  leading  trait  had  for  so  long  been  religious  indiffer- 
ence, heresy  and  raskol  (dissent)  should  manifest  itself,  much 
more  that  it  should  spread  among  the  masses." 

And  Shchapov  says : 

"Popular  indifference  in  respect  of  religious  ceremonial 
was  so  strong  in  the  age  which  witnessed  the  emergence  and 
spread  of  the  Raskol,  that  not  only  in  the  XVIIth  Century 
the  Tsars  Michael  Theodorovich  and  Alexis  Michaelovich, 
but  also  at  the  beginning  of  the  XVIIIth  Peter  the  Great,  had 
to  drive  the  people  by  means  of  ukases  to  go  to  church,  to  con- 
fess and  communicate."^ 

"The  Russian  people,"  says  Palmieri,  p.  402  (following 
Golubinski,  ii,  871)  "had  a  singular  understanding  of  what 
constitutes  piety.  Many  took  no  pains  to  observe  the  essential 
rules  of  Christian  life,  only  attended  Church  two  or  three  times 
a  year,  very  seldom  went  to  confession  or  communion,  and 
waited  for  the  deathbed  before  they  could  be  induced  to 
receive  the  Sacraments."  Golubinski  also  dwells  on  the  cold- 
ness of  religious  sentiment  and  supine  ignorance  of  the  lower 
classes  in  Nikon's  age,  and  in  the  century  which  preceded. 
Further  back  in  the  age  anterior  to  Maximus  the  Greek  we 
have  no  data  on  which  to  base  a  judgment. 

Nevertheless,  A?vrites  Uzov,  we  are  suddenly  confronted  in 
Nikon's  age  with  a  vigorous  propaganda  and  an  obstinate 
struggle.  How  shall  we  explain  it?  He  believes  the  true 
explanation  to  be  that  in  the  Raskol  the  true  driving  force 
was  not  religion,  but  other  factors,  which  may  be  summarised 
as  the  struggle  against  centralisation  and  the  growth  of  Tartar 

1  A.  Shchapov,  Russian  Raskol,  p.  163. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  15 

influence.  The  reforming  zeal  of  Nikon,  the  Uturgical  con- 
troversy of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  and  the 
councils  of  1551  and  1667  were  only  the  more  spectacular 
symptoms  of  these  deeper  causes. 

The  Struggle  against  Centralisation 

"In  the  XVIIth  Century,  before  the  time  of  the  Raskol,  it 
often  happened  that  the  inferior  clergy  in  an  entire  province 
or  in  special  districts  refused  to  obey  the  orders  of  its  arch- 
priest  and  endeavoured  to  free  itself  not  only  from  the  payment 
of  legal  dues,  but  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Metropolitan. 
Already  prior  to  the  Raskol,  priests  were  occasionally  found 
imbued  with  a  manifestly  Raskol-like  temper  of  insubordina- 
tion despising  the  hierarchical  piety."  More  than  once  the 
clergy  had  aspired  to  independence  of  the  spiritual  authority, 
and  laymen  presumed  to  follow  their  example. 

"Indifference  towards  the  Church  naturally  led  on  to  dis- 
obedience, opposition  to  Church  authorities  and  in  general  to 
suspicion  of  and  want  of  respect  for  the  clergy.  Attempts 
were  already  visible  to  achieve  complete  freedom  from  their 
jurisdiction  or  at  least  to  get  control  thereof."^  "In  some 
places  and  especially  in  Pskov  and  Novgorod  there  had  oc- 
curred open  revolts  against  Church  jurisdiction  and  administra- 
tion. In  Novgorod  the  movement  in  favour  of  independence 
from  Moscow  was  so  strong  that  on  one  occasion  they  sent  to 
the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  to  urge  their  case:  '  We  do  not 
want  to  be  judged  by  the  MetropoUtan,'  they  said,  'but  we  ask 
for  your  blessing;  and  if  you  will  not  give  it,  then  we  will  take 
sides  with  the  Latins.' "^  ''The  ills  of  the  Russian  Clergy," 
writes  Palmieri  (p.  253),  reproducing  the  words  of  Golubinski's 
History,  "were  due  to  the  infiltration  into  Russia  of  Byzantine 
ideals.  The  priesthood  lacked  from  the  beginning  the  char- 
acteristics of  an  apostolic  ministry.  The  priests  were  looked 
upon  as  artisans  for  whom  it  was  enough  to  be  able  to  read  and 
celebrate  the  rites.     Their  spiritual   labours    were   miserably 

1  Shchapov,  op.  cit.,  pp.  77,  pp.  168,  169. 

2  D.  D.  Sontsov,  Hist,  of  Russ.  People  up  to  XVIIth  Century,  p.  60. 


16  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

recompensed,  and  as  a  class  they  made  no  pretence  of  educating 
and  guiding  the  people.     The  difference    of  moral  conditions 
dug  an  abyss  between  the  episcopate  and  the  lower  clergy. 
The  bishops  needed  vast  sums  to  keep  up  their  retinues  which 
often  numbered  a  hundred  persons.     In  their  palaces,  courtiers, 
stewards,  major-domos,  chamberlains,  exactors  of  dues,  secre- 
taries, sacristans,  hieromonachi  (i.  e.  monks  ordained  as  priests) 
and  so  forth  elbowed  one  another.     Episcopal  revenues  were 
beyond  doubt  large;    thus  early  in  the  XVIth  Century   the 
MetropoHtan  of  Moscow  possessed  100,000  desiatines  (1  des. 
=  2.70  acres),  and  he  of  Novgorod  had  still  ampler  estates. 
Nevertheless  such  resources  did  not  suffice  them,  and  they 
took  to  robbing  in  order  to  satiate  the  voracity  of  their  satel- 
lites.    Priests  had  to  toil  like  slaves  in  order  that  their  bishops 
might  live  like  princes.     Nobles,  pages  and  dignitaries  had  no 
scruples  in  the  petty  episcopal  courts  against  plundering  the 
country  clergy  who  flocked  in  vain  to  the  Tsar,  the  patriarch, 
and  the  bishops,  to  protest  against  the  injuries  inflicted  on  them. 
Their  protests  fell  on  deaf  ears,  and  to  losses  were  added  jeers 
and  insults.     It  is  no  wonder  if  now  and  then  the  unhappy 
popes,  reduced  to  desperation,  refused  to  pay  the  episcopal 
dues  and  resisted  violence  with  violence.     The  populace  flew 
to  help  them,  and  hunted  away  or  roughly  handled  the  episco- 
pal tax  gatherers,  as  happened  at  Pskov  in  1435  and  later  at 
Vyshgorod,  whose  inhabitants  after  duly  cudgelling  the  agents 
of  the  MetropoHtan  lona,  expelled  them  from  the  vicinity." 
"There  is  no  age,"  he  writes  again  (p.  256),  '4n  which  we  do 
not  feel  the  deepest  pity  for  the  much  ridiculed  popes.     It  is 
on  them  that  the  fatal  consequences  of  the  Byzantine  system  of 
the  Russian  Church  fell,  and  episcopate  and  State  vied  with 
each  other  to  sink  them  to  the  level  of  brutes  and  turn  them  into 
ci\dl  and  ecclesiastical  pariahs.     Thus  the  latent  schism  of  that 
Church  to-day  has  historical  roots.     The  presbyterian  move- 
ment of  the  present  time,  to  use  the  expression  of  certain  Rus- 
sian bishops,  is  the  fruit  of  a  policy  of  oppression  which  has 
rendered  the  hierarchy  hateful  to  the  lower  clergy,  which  has 
drawn  the  latter  closer  to  the  people  who  share  their  misery 
with  them,  and  actually  drives  many  of  the  rural  popes  into 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  17 

the  ranks  of  socialism  and  of  those  who  are  in  revolt  against 
Church  and  State."  .... 

"Over  against  the  bishops  we  behold  the  insurrection  of 
a  down-trodden  clergy,  upheld  in  their  demands  by  an 
oppressed  people.  The  popes  cannot  see  why  the  highest 
posts  of  the  hierarchy  should  be  kept  for  monkery  alone.  No 
canon  of  councils,  ecumenical  or  particular,  sanctions  such  a 
custom."  (p.  689). 

The  truth  is,  writes  Uzov,  that  in  the  times  prior  to  the 
Raskol  the  relations  of  the  clergy  to  the  people  were  utterly 
different  from  what  they  are  now.  The  clergy  were  'Hhe  toy 
outright,  the  servant  of  what  was  then  the  all-powerful  factor 
in  Great  Russia,  the  mir  or  village  commune,  whose  members 
selected  them  and  exacted  of  them  a  written  pledge  to  obey 
the  mir,  which  formed  the  parish,  in  all  sorts  of  ways.  With- 
out permission  of  the  mir  they  could  not  quit  the  parish  nor 
meddle  with  the  economy  of  the  church,  still  less  of  the  mir; 
the  priest  even  had  in  celebrating  the  rites  to  consult  the  likes 
and  dislikes  of  his  parishioners.  In  their  court  the  members 
of  the  mir  tried  priest  and  layman  alike  for  violations  even  of 
church  regulations.  The  priest  was  like  any  other  official 
chosen  by  the  community."^ 

Such  was  the  status  of  the  clergy  when  a  man  of  severe 
and  despotic  temper,  Nikon  Mordvinov'^  was  made  patriarch; 
and  he  lost  no  time  in  rousing  against  himself  all  the  inferior 
clergy,  towards  whom  he  conducted  himself  with  such  excess 
of  strictness  and  oppression  that  he  was  dubbed  a  second  Pope.* 
For  Nikon  a  priest  was  a  mere  nobody.  "For  any  negligence 
in  the  discharge  of  his  duties  Nikon  put  him  in  irons,  tortured 
him  in  prison  and  dispatched  him  whither  he  chose  to  beg  his 
bread."  * 

I.  Ya.  Goremykin  in  his  Sketches  of  Peasant  History  in  Po- 
land, p.  13,  has  a  passage  which  goes  some  way  to  explain  the 
antipathy  of  Russian  peasants  towards  the  Latin  Pope  that  is 

1  Quoted  by  Uzov  from  Nevskii  Sbornik  1867,  art.  by  Vishnyakov,  p.  80. 

^  See  further,  pp.  41  ff. 

^  i.  e.  of  Rome.     A.  Shchapov,  Russian  Raskol,  p.  78. 

*  N.  Kostomarov,  Rtissian  History  in  Biographies,  Ed.  iv.  pp.  178-9. 


18  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

implied  in  the  above  comparison  with  him  of  Nikon.  ''The 
preaching,"  he  says,  ''of  the  Byzantine  missionaries  of  the 
IXth  Century  met  with  success  and  encountered  no  opposition 
on  the  part  of  the  tribes,  among  whom  it  spread;  the  preachers 
from  the  west  did  not  achieve  the  same  success.  The  reason 
was  that  the  former  chose  as  a  means  for  their  propaganda  the 
diffusion  of  Slav  writing,  and  taking  their  stand  on  a  popular 
platform  introduced  together  with  the  light  of  Christianity  the 
hght  of  a  native  learning  that  could  be  understood.  It  would 
not  appear  either,  that  they  meddled  with  the  Government,  or 
tried  in  their  own  interests  to  influence  the  social  order  of  the 
countries  they  were  missionizing.  For  this  reason  people 
listened  to  them  without  misgivings  and  accepted  their  teach- 
ing of  their  own  free  will  and  readily.  The  Apostles  of  the 
Roman  Church  on  the  other  hand  were  for  the  most  part 
Germans,  and,  besides  conducting  their  preachings  in  a  tongue 
the  Slavs  did  not  understand,  they  brought  with  them  principles 
of  overlordship  in  society  that  were  German  and  to  Slavdom 
repugnant.  The  Slavs  resisted  and  defended  their  popular 
rights  with  all  their  might." 

The  above  extracts  help  to  explain  the  popular  fury  which 
Nikon's  so-called  reforms  aroused.  He  imported  State  des- 
potism; introduced  or  rather  enforced  the  German  principles 
of  overlordship  in  every  village;  anticipated  that  harsh  and 
brutal  officialdom,  that  despotism  of  bureaucrats  and  multi- 
plied ministries  which  we  to-day  associate  with  Prussia,  but 
which  was  really  more  rampant,  and  infinitely  less  plastic  and 
intelligent  in  Czarist  Russia.  One  cannot  but  be  reminded  of 
the  words  of  the  strange  thinker  Nietzsche,  —  so  often  in- 
voked, so  seldom  read  and  so  little  understood  —  which  better 
than  all  else  explain  the  genesis  of  the  Raskol: — 

"Somewhere  there  are  still  people  and  herds,  but  not  with  us, 
my  brethren:  with  us  there  are  States. 

"The  State?  What  is  that?  Well,  now  open  your  ears, 
for  now  I  deliver  my  sentence  on  the  death  of  peoples. 

"The  State  is  the  coldest  of  all  cold  monsters.  And  coldly 
it  lieth;  and  this  lie  creepeth  out  of  its  mouth:  'I,  the  State, 
am  the  people.' 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  19 

"It  is  a  lie.  Creators  they  were  who  created  the  peoples 
and  hung  one  belief  and  one  love  over  them;  thus  they  served 
life. 

"Destroyers  they  are  who  lay  traps  for  many,  calhng  them 
the  State :  they  hung  a  sword  and  a  hundred  desires  over  them. 

"Whatever  a  people  is  left,  it  understandeth  not  the  State, 
but  hateth  it  as  the  evil  eye,  and  a  sin  against  customs  and 
rights." 

Nikon,  wTites  Uzov,  encroached  on  the  local  life  of  Russia. 
He  overwhelmed  every  town  and  village  with  taxation.  Not 
a  priest  or  deacon  but  had  to  pay  tithes  on  every  truss  of  hay, 
every  bushel  of  corn.  Even  the  beggars  were  made  to  pay. 
But  in  particular  his  reforms  were  aimed  to  strengthen  the 
grip  of  the  higher  grades  of  the  hierarchy  on  the  people,  and 
to  make  himself  Pope  on  the  Roman  model.  But  while  striv- 
ing to  subject  the  clergy  to  the  despotic  power  of  the  Patriarch, 
Nikon  at  the  same  time  devoted  all  his  energies  to  releasing 
them  from  subjection  to  the  mirs.  In  his  time  the  parish  was 
turned  "as  it  were  into  a  clerico-political  circumscription."  ^ 

The  reforms  of  Nikon  drew  on  him  the  hatred  of  every  class 
of  the  people,  to  whom  they  seemed  violations  of  their  customs 
and  rights.  The  principle  of  authority  which  he  invoked  as 
between  the  clergy  and  the  people  offended  the  customs  of 
both  and  was  reckoned  to  be  a  form  of  Latinizing  and  of 
Popery.  "Nothing,"  wrote  the  protopope  Avvakum  in  a 
petition  to  the  Tsar  Alexis  Michailovich,  "so  much  engenders 
schism  in  the  churches  as  overbearing  love  of  domination  on 
the  part  of  the  authorities."  ^ 

Nikon's  reforms  encountered  from  the  lower  clergy  in  particu- 
lar a  stubborn  resistance,  because  they  tended  to  strengthen 
the  powers  of  the  archpriests.  His  despotic  freaks  aroused 
the  indignation  of  the  upper  classes  as  well.  The  Pious  Tsar 
Alexis  in  his  letter  to  Nikon  remarked  that  he  had  to  find  fault 
with  him,  because  "he  drove  men  to  fast  by  force,  but  could 
not  drive  anyone  by  force  to  believe  in  God."  ^ 

»  V.  Andreev:  The  Raskol  and  its  significance  in  Russian  popular  history, 
Petersb.  1870,  p.  96. 
2  Ibid.  p.  58. 
'  Ignatius,  History  of  the  Raskol,  pp.  188-9. 


20  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

One  of  the  malcontents,  the  Boyarin  Simeon  Streshnev, 
"having  taught  his  big  dog  to  sit  up  on  his  hind-quarters  and 
to  bless  with  his  front  paws  in  the  manner  of  an  archpriest, 
gave  him  the  name  of  Nikon.  The  mockery  was  carried  on 
in  public  without  shame  or  fear."  '  Nikon's  comment  reveals  a 
lack  of  humour:  "If  a  mouse  eats  the  host,  it  does  not  com- 
municate.    So  neither  is  a  dog's  blessing  really  a  blessing." 

After  rendering  himself  odious  to  the  lower  clergy  and  the 
people,  Nikon  embarked  on  the  correction  of  church  books 
and  of  sundry  rites,  and  carried  out  his  plan  with  his  accus- 
tomed masterfulness.  It  was  less  that  the  plan  was  destestable 
than  that  its  executor  was;  for,  to  begin  with,  the  so-called 
reforms,  no  less  than  the  opposition  to  them,  appealed  to  the 
clergy  alone,  and  outside  its  ranks  textual  emendations  neither 
interested,  nor  were  understood  by  anyone.  The  majority  of 
the  Russian  people,  as  might  be  expected,  regarded  the  matter 
with  ancestral  indifference  and  phlegm.^  Andrew  Denisov, 
an  early  leader  of  the  Raskol,  admits  that  there  was  at  first  no 
popular  opposition  to  the  new  editions  promulgated  by  Nikon. 
The  masses  had  no  idea  what  it  was  all  about.  How  should 
they  when  the  services  were  in  old  Cyrillic,  a  dead  language 
which  they  could  understand  no  more  then  than  now?  For  a 
long  time  "they  failed  to  discern  that  anything  new  was 
happening  and  were  wrapt  in  their  usual  pall  of  ignorance."  ^ 
Ecclesiastical  dignitaries  whose  chief  characteristic  it  was  "to 
be  easy-going  and  indolent  in  their  own  affairs  and  occupations 
were  obviously  not  going  to  resist."  ^  And  this  was  just  what 
Nikon  counted  on, —  all  the  more  so,  because  the  changes  had 
already  begun  under  his  predecessors,  and  "the  innovations 
had  already  appeared  outright  in  the  newly  printed  books 
under  the  four  patriarchs  who  preceded  Joseph."  ^  "In 
particular  the  books  issued  under  Joseph  were  full  of  variants 
from  the  earlier  printed  editions,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  very 
ones  to-day  in  use  among  the  old-ritualists."  ^ 

"In  order  to  bring  about  everywhere  the  suspension  of  the 

^  Ignatius,  History  of  the  Raskol,  pp.  188-9. 

2  Kostomarov,  in  Messenger  of  Europe,  1871,  No.  4,  pp.  481-2. 

3  Ignatius,  History  of  the  Raskol,  pp.  140,  151. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  21 

old  style  of  Church-service,  Nikon  ordered  the  old  books  to  be 
taken  away  in  every  parish,  both  in  towns  and  villages.  In  so 
acting  he  was  merely  following  the  example  of  the  patriarch 
Philaret,  who  not  only  everywhere  removed,  but  even  burned 
the  order  for  prayer  and  ministration  printed  in  Moscow  in 
1610."  1 

But  Nikon,  continues  Uzov,  by  his  rasping  severity  had 
already  inflamed  the  clergy  against  himself.  They  hated  him 
because  he  had  done  all  he  could  to  substitute  for  the  old  and 
more  or  less  fraternal  ties  which  bound  the  common  clergy 
and  ecclesiastical  superiors  together,  a  new  relationship  of 
harsh  subordination.  In  this  connection  we  must  not  forget 
that  in  the  Eastern  Churches  the  parish  clergy  must  be  mar- 
ried men  like  their  parishioners,  whereas  the  higher  clergy  have 
taken  monastic  vows.  A  family  man  and  a  monk  easily  lose 
touch  with  each  other.  The  lower  clergy  were  thus  all  of  them 
ready  to  oppose  Nikon's  textual  innovations,  so  soon  as  they 
were  pointed  out  to  them;  and  the  tactless  way  he  went  to 
work  only  hardened  them  in  their  opposition.  It  was  at  his 
instance,  as  we  have  seen,  that  in  the  Council  of  1656,  the 
higher  clergy  solermily  anathematized  those  who  crossed 
themselves  with  two  fingers.^  This  resort  to  anathemas  gave 
to  Nikon's  work  the  stamp  of  an  abomination,  for  his  oppon- 
ents could,  and  did,  at  once  accuse  him  of  levelling  a  curse 
against  all  former  generations  of  saints  that  had  crossed  them- 
selves in  that  manner.  It  gave  them  a  good  excuse  for  pro- 
nouncing in  their  turn  an  equally  solemn  curse  on  Nikon  and 
all  his  works. 

More  than  all  else  this  one  innovation  provided  all  who  were 
discontented  with  the  administration  of  Church  matters  with  a 
battle-cry  and  a  standard  round  which  to  rally.  "As  in 
Moscow  the  capital,  so  in  the  provinces,  the  revolt  of  the  lower 
clergy  and  their  leaning  to  dissent  was  due  to  a  clerico- 
democratic  instinct  to  free  themselves  from  the  restraints 
imposed  by  the  higher  hierarchy,  and  in  particular  from  its  juris- 
diction, its  crushing  imposts  and  dimes."  ^    We  must  bear  in 

1  P.  Melnikov:  Historical  Sketch  of  Popovshchina,  Moscow,  1864,  p.  14. 

^  op.  cit.  Melnikov,  p.  14. 

'  A.  Shchapov,  Russian  Raskol,  p.  204. 


22  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

mind  that  in  the  good  old  times  the  parish  priest  was  amenable 
to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  village  elders  among  whom  he  lived  and 
who  knew  him  personally  and  intimately.  Nikon  withdrew 
him  from  their  jurisdiction  and  placed  him  under  the  surveil- 
lance of  monks  who  hved  far  away  and  were  foreign  to  him. 
Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  fees  for  ordination 
payable  to  the  bishop  were  reduced  by  transferring  to  the 
latter  so  much  of  the  authority  which  by  ancient  usage  belonged 
to  the  llir.  The  undivided  Church,  as  is  well  known,  recog- 
nized but  a  single  charismatic  dignity  alike  in  bishop  and 
priest,  and  accordingly  one  of  the  earliest  Raskol  teachers, 
the  protopope  Neronov,  wrote  to  the  Tsar  that  "the  priestly 
grade  is  one  and  the  same  in  all.  You  cannot,  he  argued, 
speak  of  one  man's  holy  orders  as  being  perfect,  of  another's 
as  imperfect,  for  all  priests  are  on  a  level.  If  archpriests  are 
successors  of  the  highest  Twelve  Apostles,  yet  the  priests  and 
deacons  are  successors  of  the  Seventy  Apostles;  and  among 
themselves  they  are  all  brethren,  servants  of  one  Lord."  For 
the  settlement  therefore  of  ecclesiastical  disputes,  he  proposed 
the  convening  of  a  council  at  which  should  be  present  not  only 
archpriests,  but  archimandrites,  hegumens,  protopopes,  divines, 
priests  and  deacons,  and  ''also  those  who  inhabit  the  village 
communes  (mirs)  and  who,  no  matter  what  their  rank,  lead 
good  hves . . .  "  ^ 

The  Old  behevers,  in  fact,  were  intent  on  defending  the  rights 
of  the  locality  and  of  the  individual;  accordingly  when  the 
patriarch  reproached  them  in  public  debate  for  not  obeying 
their  archpriests,  they  pointed  out  that  ''respect  is  not  due  to 
persons,  when  the  faith  is  being  tampered  with  or  even  when 
the  truth  is  at  stake,  and  it  must  be  proclaimed  not  only  in  the 
presence  of  the  priestly  caste,  but  of  Tsars,  inasmuch  as  to 
apostatize  from  true  reUgion  is  to  apostatize  from  God."  ^ 

At  the  beginning  of  their  struggle  with  the  Church  authori- 
ties the  Old  believers  imagined  they  would  meet  with  the  sup- 
port of  the  civil  ones;   thus  it  is  that  the  Raskol  began  its 

*  I.  Kharlamov  in  Strana,  1880,  No.  57. 

*  Three  Petitions,  pp.  1  and  96.  The  one  I  cite  is  given  by  Will.  Palmer,  The 
Taar  and  the  Patriarch,  Vol.  II,  p.  449.     It  was  presented  to  the  Tsar  Oct.  6, 1667. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  23 

history  with  petitions  to  the  civil  rulers.^  "Gracious  Tsar," 
wrote  the  monks  of  Solovets,  ''we  beseech  you  with  tears  and 
lamentations,  suffer  not  this  new  doctor  and  ecumenic  patri- 
arch to  change  our  true  Christian  faith  delivered  to  us  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  his  holy  apostles,  and  by  the  seven 
general  Councils  upheld.  Let  us  abide  in  the  piety  and  tradi- 
tions in  which  our  wonder  workers  Zosimus  and  Sabbatius  and 
Germanus  and  Philip,  metropolitan  of  Moscow,  and  all  the 
saints  found  favour  with  God."  Here  there  is  no  accent  of 
disloyalty  and  revolt.  But  they  were  soon  disillusioned,  for, 
in  what  was  really  a  struggle  between  the  democratic  elements 
and  the  authorities  of  the  Church,  the  Tsar's  Government 
speedily  took  the  side  of  the  latter  and  proceeded  to  punish 
the  opposition  with  all  severity.  The  Old  believers  promptly 
made  up  their  minds  that  Tsar  Alexis  Michailovich  "was  no 
Tsar  but  a  tyrant."^ 

The  Church  Council  of  1666  decided  to  punish  the  dissidents 
"not  only  with  ecclesiastical  but  with  imperial  penalties,  i.e. 
by  civil  statute  and  execution."^  Persecutions  and  atrocities 
began,  and  a  talented  Old  believer,  the  protopope  Awakum, 
wrote  in  view  of  what  was  occurring:  " 'Tis  a  marvel  how  little 
they  think  of  argument.  It  is  by  fire,  nay  by  knout,  by  the 
gallows,  they  want  to  affirm  the  faith.  What  Apostles  ever 
taught  such  courses?  I  know  not.  My  Christ  never  bade  our 
Apostles  to  teach  that  fire,  knout  and  halter  are  educators 
in  faith.  .  .  .  The  Tatar  God  Mahomet  wrote  in  his  book: 
Our  behest  is  to  strike  off  with  the  glaive  the  heads  of  those 
who  will  not  submit  to  our  tradition  and  statute."^  But  such 
protests  did  not  avail  against  the  enemies  of  the  Raskol,  and 
persecution  waxed  all  the  fiercer. 

The  intervention  of  the  Tsar's  Government  in  a  dispute 
between  the  people  and  Church  Authorities  could  only  result 
in  "the  rebel  movement,  which  the  teachers  of  the  Raskol  had 
begim  on  strictly  ecclesiastical  ground,  being  suddenly  trans- 
ferred to  the  sphere  of  civilian  and  popular  life;  and  at  the  head 

1  Imperial  Society  of  History  and  Antiquities,  1863,  bk.  1,  p.  57. 

2  Some  Words  on  the  Raskol,  by  I.  Nilski,  p.  63. 

^  Life  of  the  Protopope  Awakum,  written  by  himself,  pp.  93-4. 


24  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  it  popular  leaders  made  their  appearance  and  took  command, 
partisans  opposed  to  the  imperial  Government,  such  as  Kho- 
vanski,  Stenka  Razin,  the  Denisovs  and  others."^  But  this 
doubhng,  says  Uzov,  of  ecclesiastical  protest  by  civil  did  not 
come  at  once,  but  only  gradually,  and  ill-success  attended  the 
first  essays  of  the  Raskolniks  to  link  their  own  fortunes  with 
revolution  against  the  civil  powers.  Thus,  for  example,  in 
the  time  of  the  revolt  of  the  Streltsy  guards,  the  dregs  of  the 
populace  rose  along  with  them  against  the  princes  and  boyars 
and  massacred  many...^  They  tore  up  judicial  writs  and 
ordinances  affecting  the  serfs,  burned  the  stores  in  the  for- 
tresses, made  havoc  of  legal  decisions,  declared  the  serfs  to  be 
free,  rescued  from  prisons  the  interned.-^  When  they  began  to 
pillage  boyars  and  princes,  the  Streltsy  did  not  spare  even  the 
Tsar's  treasury.  The  Sovereign's  enemies  were  joined  by  the 
foes  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  these  Old  believers, 
though  a  small  group  to  begin  with,  formed  a  welcome  accession 
of  strength  to  the  rebel  soldiers,  who  regarded  them  as  men  of 
learning;  not  that  they  had  the  least  idea  of  how  the  party 
of  Old  believers  differed  from  Nikon's,  indeed  the  majority  of 
them  had  not  the  least  desire  to  know;  they  were  only  minded 
to  end  the  old  regime,  and  so  were  led  incidentally  to  demon- 
strate in  favour  of  freedom  of  conscience.  Meanwhile  the 
Government  was  well  aware  that  the  Streltsy  took  no  interest 
in  the  struggle  of  the  Raskol  as  such  and  presently  succeeded  in 
detaching  them.  "Why,"  asked  the  heads  of  State  and  Church 
of  them,  ''why  sacrifice  us  and  the  whole  Russian  realm  for 
half-a-dozen  monks?"  The  soldiers  gave  ear  and  answered: 
"With  that  (viz:  the  quarrel  of  the  Old  beUevers  with  the 
heads  of  the  State)  we  have  nothing  to  do." 

The  Old  believers,  however,  were  not  disheartened  by  this 
first  repulse  of  fortune,  but  pursued  their  aims  unswervingly 
and  with  superhuman  fortitude.  The  party  of  opposition 
among  the  clergy  was  in  itself  weak,  but  alhed  itself  with  any 
sort  of  popular  agitation,  however  much  the  result  of  motives 

1  A.  Shchapov,  Russian  Raskol,  p.  218. 

2  Three  Petitions,  pp.  72,  60,  89,  137,  142. 
»  Three  Petitions,  pp.  137,  142. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  25 

and  convictions  other  than  its  own;  among  the  people  there 
were  great  numbers  who  were  ready  to  adhere  to  anything 
which  magnified,  much  more  sanctified,  their  old  grudge  against 
authority  in  general;  and  the  Raskolniks  ranged  themselves 
in  opposition  to  the  Government  under  the  banner  of  holy  ^vrit 
and  of  theology.  Their  protest  against  social  abuses  was 
formulated  in  phrases  culled  from  theological  texts.  Theology 
of  course  was  the  only  ''science"  known  to  the  Russian  of  that 
age,  and  it  does  not  surprise  us  that  he  threw  his  feeUngs  and 
aspirations  into  the  mould  of  its  terms  and  conceptions.^ 
It  really  signified  little  in  what  form  his  feelings  and  ideas  were 
moulded, —  his  chief  concern  was  to  arrange  them  in  a  system 
of  teaching  intelligible  to  others,  and  here  theology  stood  him 
in  good  stead.  Yet,  asks  Uzov,  how  explain  the  fact  that  dis- 
content with  social  institutions  in  thus  moulding  itself  in 
religious  form,  to  wit  in  that  of  the  Raskol,  announced  that  it 
could  only  be  satisfied  by  a  return  to  the  ancient  order?  Why 
did  it  not  aspire  to  something  newer,  as  is  usually  the  case? 
To  answer  this  query  we  need  to  consider  wherein  consisted 
this  old  order  and  who  it  was  that  was  intent  on  its  abrogation. 

Russia  and  Tartar  Influence 

"In  old  Russia  every  province  enjoyed  a  certain  autonomy 
of  its  own,  freely  evolved  an  independent  life,  conditioned  only 
by  locality,  by  tribal  character,  by  the  special  nature  of  its 
occupations  and  activities.  As  the  forces  of  centralization 
waxed  stronger,  this  independent  life  was  levelled  out  and 
conformed  to  a  general  current  and  plane.  Localities,  however, 
that  had  enjoyed  such  independence  and  freedom  gave  it  up 
reluctantly;  for  they  were  loth  to  forfeit  their  privileges  and 
aspirations,  and  continued  for  long  to  oppose  a  centralizing 
administration  and  policy  that  was  new  and  alien  to  them. 
In  the  turbulent  age  of  the  impostors  the  forced  and  artificial 
unification  of  the  provinces  was  temporarily  relaxed,  and  every 
local  centre  endeavoured  to  strengthen  itself  and  recover  its 
old  independent  life,  to  regain  its  ancient  rights.     But  when 

1  Today  (1919)  the  Political  Economy  of  Karl  Marx  has  taken  the  place  of  the 
'Science'  of  theology  of  the  17th  century. 


26  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

-w-ith  Michael  Theodorovich  and  Alexis  Miehailovich  Russia 
was  once  more  'collected,'  i.e.  unified,  the  bonds  were  forged 
anew.^ 

And  why,  asks  Uzov,  was  the  transition,  when  it  came,  one 
from  old  and  more  liberal  and  humane  institutions  to  those  of 
Moscow?  Was  this  the  natural  course  of  development  for  the 
Russian  social  organism?  Here  is  a  question  which  admits  of 
no  other  answer  than  this:  the  new  institutions  which  now 
developed  in  Russia  were  a  consequence  of  the  external  pres- 
sure of  the  Tartar  invasion.  A  savage  people  by  dint  of  brute 
force  had  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  land  a  genuine  Russian  civili- 
zation that  was  already  maturing;  and  it  was  relatively  easy  to 
do  so,  because  it  was  not  a  warlike  but  a  peaceful  civihzation. 
All  the  dark  forces  latent  in  the  Russian  people  leaned  to  the 
side  of  the  Tartars,  accepted  their  civihzation  and  by  flattering 
and  shuffling  before  them  fettered  —  thanks  to  Tartar  aid  — 
the  Russian  people  and  riveted  their  yoke  upon  it. 

"Thus  Moscow  fraternized  with  the  Tartars,  and  under  the 
shadow  of  their  anti-nationalist  system  managed  to  gather 
round  herself  the  provinces  of  Novgorod,  Pskov,  Tver,  Ryazan, 
Perm  and  Kiev.  In  a  Moscow  torn  from  Southern  Russia  a 
Moscovite  world  emerged  and  entrenched  itself.  In  the  XVth 
Century  when  the  rest  of  the  Slav  nationalities  were  reviv- 
ing, when  among  Poles,  Croats,  Slovenes,  Serbs,  Bulgarians, 
and  in  South  Russia  a  popular  literature  was  beginning  to 
appear,  there  opened  in  Moscow  an  era  of  final  decadence. 
The  art  of  writing,  enlightenment,  literature,  art,  wholesome 
international  relationships,  which  had  all  aforetime  culminated 
in  Kiev  in  the  Xllth  Century  —  these  perished  in  Moscow. 
Russian  equity  took  flight  and  fled  to  heaven,  and  in  Moscow 
quibbling  chicanery  and  Moscovite  intrigue  took  its  place."^ 

To  the  Tartars  Russia  owes  the  introduction  of  iron  rule 
with  all  its  attractions,  and  the  institution  of  draconian  statutes. 
The  code  of  Alexis  Miehailovich  was  a  product  of  Tartar 
character  rather  than  of  Slav.  To  the  Tartars  is  due  the  sub- 
stitution of  despotism  and  autocratic  bureaucracy   for  the 

1  N.  Aristov,  in  Vremya  {Time),  1862,  No.  1,  p.  76. 

^   History  of  Cabarets  in  Russia,  by  Iv.  Pryzhov,  Moscow,  1868,  p.  45-6. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  27 

ordinances  of  common  councils  and  provincial  autonomy. 
Tartar  civilization  having  forcibly  cankered  Russian  society, 
took  Tartars  into  its  service,  for  the  insufficiency  of  its  own 
powers  was  realized,  and  it  resorted  to  such  means  in  order  to 
safeguard  its  own  existence. 

"In  the  XVIth  Century  a  fresh  flood  of  violence  and  bar- 
barity inundated  Russia  along  with  the  irruptions  of  Kazan, 
Astrakhan  and  Siberian  Tsars,  Tsaritsas,  Tsareviches,  princes, 
petty  princes,  who  offered  their  services  to  the  Tsar's  govern- 
ment in  Moscow  and  married  into  the  Russian  noblesse,  so 
constituting  themselves  defenders  of  Russian  territory  and 
acquiring  control  of  the  cities  of  Kasimov,  Zvenigorod,  Kashir, 
Serpukhov,  Khotun,  louriev,  along  with  many  villages  and 
hamlets."  ^  And  thus  in  this  period  the  proverb  was  coined: 
"Live,  live,  until  Moscow  gets  hold  of  you."  Andreev  states 
that  the  forefathers  of  the  majority  of  Russian  nobles  in  the 
realm  of  Moscow,  were  emigrants  from  Tartary  or  settlers 
from  Western  Europe.^  We  may  thus  unhesitatingly  conclude, 
writes  Uzov,  that  in  the  age  which  gave  birth  to  the  Raskol, 
Russian  society  under  stress  of  violence  on  the  part  of  these 
Tartars  had  entered  on  a  retrograde  path.  The  latter  were 
installed  in  the  highest  administrative  positions  in  the  society 
of  the  time,  and  were  sustained  in  them  by  our  own  Russian 
home-bred  Tartars.  Christian  standards  of  morals  were  over- 
whelmed by  Tartar  ones,  national  pecuharities  were  wholly 
lost  sight  of,  all  the  more  so  because  the  governing  caste,  being 
principally  composed  of  elements  alien  to  the  Russian  genius, 
altogether  lacked  any  idea  of  the  character  and  aspirations  of„ 
the  people  they  ruled. 

Russian  Ritualism  and  Liturgical  Controversy 

Though  great  movements  have  always  great  causes,  never- 
theless relatively  petty  circumstances  seem  always  to  provide 
their  starting  point.  The  great  Russian  schism  was  no  excep- 
tion. It  began  not  with  any  articulate  protest  against  Tartar 
customs,  or  Byzantine  polity  in  general,  but  with  opposition 

1  ib.  p.  48. 

2  Andreev,  The  Raskol  and  its  Significance,  p.  14. 


28  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

to  small  details  of  ritual  and  the  corrupt  text  of  service  books. 
Ivanovski  gives  a  full  account  of  these  details,  and  the  criti- 
cism to  which  he  is  justly  subject  is  not  that  he  is  wrong 
in  what  he  states,  but  that  he  neglects  the  greater  though  less 
spectacular  points. 

George  Bourdon  in  his  graphic  history  of  the  revolutionary 
convulsions,  which  in  Russia  followed  the  ill-starred  campaign 
of  1904  against  Japan,  describes  the  religion  of  the  Russian 
peasant  as  consisting  mainly  in  the  kissing  of  dirty  greasy 
boards  dignified  with  the  name  of  ikon  or  holy  picture,  but 
often  anikonic,  in  the  sense  that  the  images  they  once  por- 
trayed are  no  longer  decipherable.  This  superstitious  respect 
for  representations  of  the  human  face  and  person  was  well 
exemplified  in  the  invasion  of  East  Prussia  with  which  the  war 
of  1914  began.  Then,  as  Mr.  Stephen  Graham  attests  in  his 
work  Russia  and  the  World  (London,  1915),  the  only  objects  in 
German  houses  which  escaped  the  destructive  zeal  of  the  Rus- 
sian infantry  were  the  pictures  on  the  walls.  Pianos,  vioUns, 
books,  furniture  of  all  sorts  were  smashed  to  atoms,  torn  up 
and  cast  into  the  gutters,  or  burned,  but  never  a  picture  was 
touched.  These  poor  barbarians,  of  whom,  according  to  the 
French  statistics  of  1911,  nearly  three  out  of  four  could  neither 
read  nor  write,  had  never  set  foot  in  a  civilized  dwelling  before; 
and  they  assumed  that  the  pictures  and  paintings  which 
adorned  the  walls  harboured  spirits  or  were  holy  ikons.  Even 
the  busts  of  the  Kaiser,  so  Mr.  Graham  assures  us,  were  spared, 
no  doubt  because  he  was  mistaken  for  a  saint. 

It  is  then  to  such  a  respect  for  the  external  trappings  of 
religion  that  Prof.  Ivanovski  traces  the  origin  of  the  Raskol. 
It  was  from  the  first,  he  thinks,  the  essential  character  of  popu- 
lar religion  among  his  countrymen,  the  expression  of  their  soul. 
They  were,  he  says,  in  their  infancy  when  they  were  converted, 
and  his  argument  requires  us  to  believe  that  they  were  still 
'in  their  infancy'  in  the  second  half  of  the  XVIIth  Century 
when  the  Patriarch  Nikon  introduced  his  'reforms';  and,  to 
judge  from  the  hold  which  Dissent  still  has  upon  them,  they 
have  not  yet  emerged  from  childhood.  Their  pohtical  develop- 
ment had  been  arrested  by  the  Mongol  yoke,  and  religion  sup- 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  29 

plied  the  only  channel  along  which  their  inner  life  could  flow; 
but,  like  children,  they  could  not  embrace  a  religion  which  was 
abstract  and  meditative;  they  needed  rather  one  of  external 
aids  and  outside  shows,  in  the  absence  of  which  they  could 
not  be  stirred  to  faith  and  prayer.  Temple  rites  and  adorn- 
ments, vestments,  shrines,  pilgrimages,  miraculous  pictures, 
divine  volumes,  houses  adorned  in  the  style  of  churches,  life 
in  strict  accordance  with  ecclesiastical  rule,  all  these,  he  argues, 
were  of  the  essence  of  religion  in  the  age  which  gave  birth  to 
the  Raskol.  At  that  time  few  minds  rose  to  the  level  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  these  unessentials  and  the  essential  dogmas 
that  embody  eternal  truth  and  are  therefore  unalterable.  How 
low  the  general  level  of  intelligence  really  was  is  proved  by  the 
frequent  complaints  to  that  effect  on  the  part  of  the  higher 
clergy;  thus  in  the  year  1500  Gennadius,  Archbishop  of  Nov- 
gorod, attests  the  general  ignorance  in  his  epistle  to  the  Metro- 
pohtan  Simon,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  XVIth  Century  it  had 
reached  its  nadir.  He  complains  that  candidates  for  ordina- 
tion could  not  read  the  Apostle  or  chant  the  Psalms  or  recite  an 
ektenia. 

As  an  example  of  lamentable  confusion  of  ritual  with  dogma, 
Ivanovski  instances  the  dispute  which  arose  in  the  XVth 
Century  as  to  whether  the  Alleluia  should  be  recited  twice  or 
thrice  before  the  Gloria  in  the  psalmody.  The  antecedents 
of  the  dispute  are  wrapt  in  obscurity;  but  it  is  clear  that  early 
in  that  century  (1419)  the  clergy  of  Pskov  began  the  triple 
recitation  by  the  advice  of  the  Metropolitan  Photius;  never- 
theless in  1450,  thirty  years  later, the  abbot  Euphrosynof  Pskov 
still  entertained  misgivings  about  it.  In  the  hope  of  laying 
to  rest  his  doubts,  about  which  he  consulted  the  Elders  of  bis 
own  Church,  but  in  vain,  Euphrosyn  paid  a  visit  to  the  Patriarch 
Joseph  of  the  'Royal  City'  Tsargrad  (Constantinople),  where 
in  the  churches  of  Sancta  Sophia  he  observed  that  the  Greeks 
only  recited  it  twice.  This  led  him  on  his  return  to  Russia  to 
insist  on  the  Greek  usage  in  his  monastery,  thereby  making 
enemies  of  the  clergy  of  Pskov,  where  a  certain  Job,  respected 
by  laity  and  clergy  as  'a  philosopher,  a  sound  teacher  and  a 
pillar  of  the  Church'  headed  the  opposition.     Euphrosyn  was 


30  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

now  accused  of  violating  the  canons  of  the  Church,  of  denying 
the  Trinity,  of  being  a  heretic  and  so  forth.  He  retorted  that 
he  was  following  the  usage  of  Tsargrad  and  of  the  ecumenic 
Church,  while  Job  was  a  pillar,  not  of  the  Church,  but  of  dung. 
This  invited  similar  amenities  from  Job  who  persuaded  his 
followers  at  Pskov,  whenever  they  passed  by  the  Monastery 
of  Euphrosyn,  not  to  bow,  but  to  call  out:  'There  lives  a 
heretic,  ripe  for  anathema.'  Both  parties  appealed  to  the  arch- 
bishop Euthymius  of  Novgorod,  who  saw  no  way  to  reconcile 
them,  and  the  quarrel  went  on  after  the  protagonists  departed 
this  life  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  a  learned  Greek,  Demetrius 
Gerasimus  (Tolmach),  to  make  peace  between  them.  He 
wrote  in  1493  from  Rome  a  letter  to  Gennadius,  Archbishop 
of  Novgorod,  to  prove  that  one  usage  was  as  legitimate  as  the 
other,  seeing  that  the  one  manifested  the  trine  hypostasis  of  the 
consubstantial  Godhead,  the  other  the  two  natures  in  Christ. 
Such  impartiality  was  not  good  enough  for  Russians,  and 
finally  the  Council  of  the  Hundred  Heads  ^  (Stoglav)  in  1551 
decided  in  its  42nd  canon  in  favour  of  the  double  Alleluia, 
stigmatizing  the  triple  one  as  a  Latin  heresy  and  as  tantamount 
to  the  inclusion  of  four  persons  in  the  Trinity ! 

Nor  was  this  the  only  dispute  which  ruffled  the  calm  of  the 
Orthodox  Church  in  the  XVth  Century,  for  in  its  last  years 
princes  and  bishops  were  divided  on  the  question  whether  in 
solemn  processions  the  priests  and  people  should  move  '  wlther- 
shins  '  or  no.  Over  this  point  the  Prince,  Ivan  Vassilevich  III, 
and  the  Metropolitan  Gerontius  shewed  httle  of  the  love  which 
Christians  should  bear  one  another.  The  bishop  Gerontius, 
consecrating  the  Uspenski  church  in  1479,  ventured  to  walk 
with  his  cross  withershins  round  the  new  fabric,  so  offending 
against  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  and  outraging  the  feelings 
of  Ivan  who  had  on  his  side  not  a  few  bishops  and  monks, 
especially  the  hvely  archimandrite  Gennadius,  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Novgorod.     The  withershins  party  pleaded  in 

'  So  called  because  their  debates  were  resumed  in  100  chapters.  At  this 
council  there  were  no  representatives  of  Kiev.  Orthodox  Russians  seek  to  impugn 
the  authority  and  even  authenticity  of  the  100  chapters.  For  the  description 
of  this  important  council  see  pp.  51  ff. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  31 

vain  that  they  advanced  not  to  affront  and  insult  the  Sun,  but 
to  greet  him;  but  as  no  canons  existed  to  settle  so  vital  an  issue, 
the  parties  remained  irreconcilable.  The  Metropolitan  would 
not  yield,  retired  in  dudgeon  to  the  Simonov  Monastery,  and 
for  several  years  refused  to  consecrate  any  more  churches,  until 
the  Prince  gave  way. 

Another  such  dispute  arose  on  the  point  whether  documents 
should  be  dated  according  to  the  era  which  began  with  Crea- 
tion or  that  which  began  with  Christ;  for  a  monk  Philotheus 
of  the  Eleazar  Monastery  revealed  the  fact  to  the  world  about 
1500  that  in  old  Russian  MSS.  both  eras  were  met  with.  The 
Armenians  solved  the  riddle  by  setting  down  both  in  their 
colophons,  but  then  they  were  monophysite  heretics.  It  did 
much  harm  to  Peter  the  Great  that  he  banished  the  old  era 
for  good.  He  was  generally  regarded  as  Antichrist  because 
of  the  innovation. 

But  the  most  formidable  and  fertile  source  of  dispute  was 
the  importance  attached  to  the  correct  use  of  liturgical  form- 
ulae, and  —  notwithstanding  this  —  the  almost  infinite  extent 
of  textual  variation  in  manuscripts  and  books. 

In  that  age  in  Russia  prayer  was  barely  differentiated  from 
magic  spells;  as  is  manifest  from  a  fourth  quarrel  that  raged 
in  1476  over  the  issue  whether  in  a  certain  passage  of  the 
liturgy  the  clergy  should  cry  'Lord,  pardon  us,'  or  'O  Lord, 
pardon  us.'  Ivanovski  complains  that  in  such  cases  the  Old- 
ritualist  temper  betrayed  itself  in  those  who  demanded  the 
continuance  of  the  usage  to  which  people  were  accustomed 
merely  because  it  was  the  old  one.  It  does  not  occur  to  him 
that  it  was  at  least  as  reasonable  to  demand  its  continuance 
as  its  discontinuance,  and  that  if  it  mattered  nothing  one  way 
or  the  other,  the  old  usage  might  as  well  have  been  tolerated 
and  not  penalised  with  knout  and  rack. 

If  we  open  any  collection  of  liturgical  texts  taken  from 
ancient  MSS.,  for  example  the  Greek  Euchologion  of  Goar, 
or  that  of  Prof.  Dimitrievski  of  Kiev,  or  my  own  Rituale  Ar- 
menorum,  we  are  at  once  struck  by  the  infinite  variety  of  text 
and  rite  in  one  and  the  same  church.  In  the  Church  Books 
of  the  Orthodox  Faith  variety  was  all  the  greater  because 


32  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  Monks  of  Athos  and  other  centres  who  translated  them 
from  the  Greek  made  so  many  blunders.  Moreover  some  of 
the  books  passed  into  Russian  not  direct,  but  through  Mora- 
vian, Serb  and  Bulgar  versions.^  Already  in  the  Xlllth 
Century  the  MetropoUtan  Cyril  complained  of  the  errors 
which  from  these  and  other  causes  had  crept  into  the  service 
books  of  his  church.  In  the  XVIth  and  XVIIth  Centuries 
such  errors,  duly  multipUed  by  transcribers,  passed  at  length 
into  the  printed  texts.  One  common  source  of  error  was  the 
intrusion  into  the  text  of  glosses  which  should  have  been  left 
in  the  margin,  and  Ivanovski  gives  one  curious  example  of  the 
sort  in  a  MS.  of  the  Xlth  Century.  The  passage  is  Matt. 
XXVII.  65,  where  Pilate  says  to  the  high  priests  and  Pharisees: 
"Ye  have  got  a  guard."  Here  the  Slav  translator,  puzzled  by 
the  Latin  word  Custodia,  assumed  it  to  be  the  name  of  Pilate's 
maiden  chatelaine !  Ivanovski  informs  us  that  there  is  much 
discrepancy  between  one  text  and  another  of  the  Baptismal 
rite;  and  one  would  like  to  know  if  it  was  not  in  the  Epiphany 
rite  celebrating  the  Benediction  of  Rivers  in  memory  of  the 
Baptism  of  Jesus,  that  the  variants  occur  —  to  his  mind  so 
deplorable  —  which  imply  that  Jesus  was  merely  human  until 
the  Spirit  descended  upon  him  in  his  thirtieth  year.  For  this 
was  the  old  Ebionite  or  Adoptionist  belief,  which  is  prominent 
in  old  Armenian  Epiphany  homilies  and  not  wholly  absent 
from  their  hymns  sung  at  the  Blessing  of  the  Rivers.  We 
need  pay  no  attention  to  Ivanovski's  conjecture  that  Jews  had 
tampered  with  these  rites;  for  this  very  beUef  characterizes 
the  Dukhobortsy  and  Khlysty  sects  and  is  therefore  very  an- 
cient on  Russian  soil. 

Slav  divines  already  recognized  in  the  XlVth  Century  how 
imperfect  were  their  versions,  and  the  MetropoUtan  Theo- 
gnostos  (1328-1353)  tried  to  correct  the  Trebnik,  a  book  which 
answers  to  the  Roman  missal.  The  Metropolitan  Alessios 
(1354-1378)  compared  the  Slav  N.  T.  with  the  Greek  text, 
and  another  Metropohtan,  Cyprian,  a  Serb  or  Bulgarian  —  it 
is  not  known  which  —  devoted  much  attention  to  the  correct- 

^  The  Moravian  Versions  were  the  most  ancient,  and  of  them  Serb  or  Bulgar 
translations  seem  to  have  passed  into  Russia. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  33 

ing  of  his  liturgical  books,  as  Mansvetov  has  pointed  out  in 
his  appendix  (Prihavleniya)  to  the  great  series  of  Russian 
versions  of  the  Fathers,  Moscow  1882,  vol.  29,  pp.  152-305; 
412-480.1 

As  an  example  of  the  dangers  which  beset  a  scholar, 
Ivanovski  relates  the  career  of  a  Greek  monk,  Maximus, 
invited  to  Moscow  in  1518  by  Prince  Basil  Ivanovich  to  take 
charge  of  the  royal  library  and  make  a  fresh  translation  of 
certain  books.  He  was  an  Albanian  by  origin,  had  studied 
in  Italy,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Vatopedi  convent  on  Mt. 
Athos.  A  man  learned  in  Greek  and  Latin,  he  won  the  favour 
of  the  Prince  and  the  friendship  of  the  Metropohtan  Barlaam, 
and  was  commissioned  by  them  to  revise  the  service  books, 
though  he  deplored  the  recent  severance  from  Constantinople 
of  the  Russian  Christians  and  their  new  claim  to  constitute 
an  independent  national  church,  to  be  in  fact  the  only  orthodox 
body  in  the  entire  world.  He  did  not  possess  Russian,  and 
was  therefore  suppUed  with  two  interpreters,  named  Deme- 
trius Gerasimov  and  Vlasius  who  also  knew  Latin,  and  with 
their  aid  he  corrected  the  Triodion,  the  Hours,  the  Menaion, 
and  the  Apostolos.  He  rendered  the  psalter  from  Greek  into 
Latin  and  the  Latin  was  turned  by  his  coadjutors  into  Slav. 
He  is  said,  as  we  saw  above,  to  have  noticed  gross  errors  in 
these  books,  intentionally  introduced  by  Judaizers,  for  Jesus 
Christ  was  denominated  in  them  a  mere  created  man  and  de- 
clared to  have  died  an  eternal  death.^ 

But  neither  the  detection  of  these  heretical  opinions  nor  his 
polemics  against  the  Latin  and  Armenian  Churches  and  against 
Jews  and  Mohammedans  saved  his  own  reputation  for  ortho- 
doxy, and  he  was  soon  accused  of  having  insulted  the  Russian 
saints  and  workers  of  miracles  of  old  and  of  deflowering  the  old 
and  sacred  books  of  Cyril  and  Methodius.  On  Barlaam's 
death,  the  new  Metropohtan  Daniel,  formerly  prior  of  the 
Volokolam  Monastery,  openly  charged  him  with  arbitrarily 
altering  the  texts,  and,  like  Henry  VIII,  the  Tsar  withdrew 

^  Palmieri,  Chiesa  Russa,  p.  400.  I  have  not  been  able  to  gain  access  to  this 
publication  of  Mansvetov. 

2  See  Plotnikov,  Istoriia  russkago  Baskola,  Petersb.  1905,  p.  13. 


34  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

his  patronage  for  the  excellent  reason  that  he  would  not  join 
Daniel  in  sanctioning  his  divorce  of  the  childless  Empress 
Salomona. 

In  1525  Daniel  convened  a  council  of  doctors  and  condemned 
Maximus  as  a  heretic,  it  is  said  because  he  had  tripped  in  Rus- 
sian grammar.  He  was  deported  to  the  Volokolam  Mon- 
astery where,  illtreated  by  the  monks,  he  nearly  died  of  smoke, 
cold  and  hunger.  In  1531  another  council,  at  the  instigation 
of  Daniel,  accused  him  of  altering  the  creed  by  eUminating  the 
epithet  true  used  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  was  banished  to  the 
Otroch  Uspenski  Monastery  in  Tver,  and  forbidden  to  receive 
the  Sacraments, —  for  him  a  great  privation.  In  vain  the 
Greek  patriarchs  interceded  in  his  behalf  and  the  bishop  of 
Tver  befriended  him.  The  utmost  concession  made  was  to 
permit  him  to  communicate,  and  he  died,  almost  friendless, 
imprisoned  in  the  Laura  of  S.  Sergius  in  1556.^ 

Yet  he  left  behind  him  rules,  simple  and  sagacious,  for  the 
guidance  of  future  revisers,  and  described  the  corrector's  art 
as  a  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Above  all  he  prescribed  a  knowl- 
edge of  tongues,  which  must  be  studied  under  good  teachers. 
His  rules  were  expressed  in  the  form  of  Greek  stichoi  or 
stanzas.  A  century  later  under  Nikon  his  principles  triumphed 
and  the  intimacy  of  the  Russian  with  the  Greek  Churches  was 
revived  and  encoiu-aged. 

We  noticed  above  that  Maximus  gave  offence  by  expvirging 
the  one  word  true  in  the  Creed.  It  comes  in  the  eighth  clause: 
And  {we  believe)  in  the  Holy  Spirit  Lord  true  and  giver  of  life. 
The  older  Slav  MSS.  are  said  to  omit  the  word,  and  prior  to 
Nikon  some  Service-books  contained  it,  others  not.  The 
Stoglav^  (or  hundred-headed)  Council  in  1551  decided  in  favour 
of  omitting  either  Lord  or  true,  but  did  not  say  which.  A 
glance  at  the  original  Greek  explains  the  difficulty.  It  runs: 
Kat  et?  TO  TTvevfia  to  djiov  to  Kvpiov  to  ^(oottoiovv.  Now  the 
word  Kvpiov  may  be  rendered  either  as  true  or  as  Lord, 
and  an  early  Russian  translator  had  set  one  rendering  in  his 
text,  the  other  no  doubt  in  his  margin,  whence  it  had  crept  into 

1  Ivanovski  has  1566. 

2  See  p.  51. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  35 

the  text,  so  that  many  MSS.  had  the  conflate  reading:  Gospoda, 
istinnogo,  i.  e.  'Lord,  True.' 

Somewhat  later  than  the  accession  to  the  throne  of  Tsar 
Michael  Theodorovich  a  tragic  dispute  arose  over  a  variant  in 
the  Epiphany  rite  of  the  Benediction  of  the  Waters,  a  variant 
that  must  itself  have  had  a  long  history  behind  it.  In  old 
copies  it  was  asked  that  the  water  might  be  sanctified  ''by  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  by  Fire,"  a  reminiscence  perhaps  of  a  variant 
found  in  some  ancient  sources  which  add  after  Matt.  3, 15,  the 
words:  "And  when  he  was  baptised,  a  mighty  Ught  shone 
around  from  the  water,  in  such  wise  that  all  who  had  come 
thither  were  struck  with  fear."  This  addition,  if  not  suggested 
by,  at  least  accords  with  John  the  Baptist's  prophecy  contained 
in  a  preceding  verse  (3, 11)  that  the  Messiah  **  shall  baptise  you 
with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with  Fire."  However  this  may  be, 
the  words  '  and  with  fire '  were  expunged  from  a  revision  of  the 
Russian  Euchologion  or  Potrehnik,  made  chiefly  from  Slav  MSS. 
by  a  certain  archimandrite  Dionysius  of  the  Trinity-Sergius 
Monastery,  who  found  the  phrase  in  only  two  copies  of  the  old 
Slav  version,  and  in  no  Greek  copy  at  all.  He  had  two  collabo- 
rators in  his  work  of  revision,  which  occupied  a  year  and  a  half, 
the  Elder  Arsenius  and  a  priest  of  the  village  of  Klementev 
attached  to  the  Monastery,  named  Ivan  Nasedkin.  Another 
important  change  they  made  was  to  exclude  the  two  prayers 
before  the  hturgy  in  which  the  priest  seeks  remission  of  his 
sins. 

The  excision  of  the  words  '  and  with  fire '  drew  down  on  these 
correctors  the  wrath  of  a  member  of  the  Laura  of  St.  Sergius, 
Longinus,  who  is  said  to  have  regarded  the  arts  of  reading  and 
writing  as  almost  heretical.  He  had  himself  passed  these  sup- 
posed errors  in  his  edition  of  the  year  1610  and  prided  himself 
on  his  learning.  He  now  accused  them  of  denying  the  Spirit 
to  be  composed  of  fire  —  a  very  ancient  opinion.  Philaret, 
his  abbot,  encouraged  him  and  by  the  joint  efforts  of  the  two 
Dionysius  and  his  fellow-students  were  in  1618  haled  before 
the  Patriarch  lona's  court,  and  subjected  to  torture  in  the  cells 
of  the  Ascension  with  the  approval  of  Martha  Ivanovna,  mother 
of  the  Tsar.     The  mob  raged  against  them,  being  told  that 


36  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

they  were  guilty  of  the  unparalleled  heresy  of  banishing  fire 
from  the  universe,  and  they  were  accused  of  heresy  in  front 
of  the  Kremlin  and  pelted  with  mud.  Dionysius  and  Ivan 
Nasedkin  were  excommunicated  by  a  council  over  which  lona 
presided,  and  imprisoned  in  the  Novospasski  Monastery, 
to  be  dragged  in  fetters  on  festivals  to  the  feet  of  lona  the 
Patriarch.  Arsenius  who  was  deaf  was  imprisoned  in  the 
convent  of  S.  Cyril.  In  the  end  however  the  new  patriarch 
Philaret  (1618)  who  had  been  ordained  by  Theophanes, 
Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  entertained  Ivan  Nasedkin's  plea  for 
mercy,  and  in  1619  they  were  pardoned.  Ivan  even  received 
marks  of  the  Tsar's  favour,  and  was  made  priest  of  the  court 
church.  Dionysius  also  came  into  favour.  Philaret  at  first 
did  not  venture  to  eliminate  the  words  '  and  with  fire '  from  the 
printed  editions  of  the  rite.  In  1625  however,  the  patriarchs 
of  Alexandria  and  Jerusalem  decided  against  them,  and  Philaret 
had  them  struck  out  in  all  editions,  although  the  immersion  of 
lighted  tapers  in  the  water  remained  part  of  the  Epiphany  rite 
commemorating  the  Baptism  of  our  Lord.  Thus  an  ancient 
and  respectable  rite  was  mutilated  of  one  of  its  most  char- 
acteristic traits.  It  could  hardly  be  otherwise  in  that  ignorant 
age.  A  corrector  was  more  likely  to  deprave  a  text  than  better 
it,  for  a  Uttle  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing. 

In  short,  as  Ivanovski  himself  recognizes,  such  corrections 
as  scholars  of  that  age  could  make,  were  as  likely  to  be  for  the 
worse  as  not,  for  how  could  they  distinguish  good  from  bad? 
Any  attempts  of  the  kind  were  sure  to  bear  the  impress  of 
arbitrariness  and  ignorance;  and  it  was  futile  for  the  Stoglav 
Council  of  1551  to  complain  of  church  books  being  faulty. 
Their  canon  prescribing  to  copyists  the  use  of  correct  versions 
and  warning  the  higher  clergy  to  supervise  their  industry  was 
as  difficult  to  observe  as  it  was  well  meant. 

The  first  printing  press  was  set  up  in  Moscow  in  1552,  in  the 
reign  of  Ivan,  Vassilevich;  it  had  been  brought  from  Denmark 
by  a  printer  named  Hansa,  who  was  assisted  by  the  deacon 
Ivan  Thedorov  or  Feodorov  and  Peter  Timothy  Mstislavets. 
Only  church  books  were  issued  from  it,  and  the  Apostolos^ 

^  Rambaud,  History  of  Biissia,  more  correctly,  says:   Acts  of  the  Apostles. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  37 

was  the  first  book  printed.  It  was  followed  by  a  Description 
of  Moscow  and  the  Book  of  Hours.  It  was  hoped  that  the 
texts  issued  would  be  more  correct,  but  the  printers  confessed 
their  ignorance  of  what  was  or  was  not  correct,  and  the  press 
could  but  stereotype  the  errors  of  the  particular  MS.  used. 
No  better  success  greeted  the  laudable  efforts  of  the  Patriarch 
Hermogenes  (1606)  to  obtain  more  correct  texts  by  attaching  to 
his  press  at  Moscow  a  corps  of  scholars  charged  to  compare  the 
books  already  printed  with  the  MSS.  and  to  collate  these  with 
each  other.  It  would  seem  that  they  confined  themselves  to 
Slav  MSS.,  and  those  recent  ones,  sparing  themselves  the 
trouble  of  following  the  precept  of  the  wise  Maximus  to  study 
the  Greek  originals.  As  an  example  of  the  inefficiency  of 
Russian  scholars  of  that  time,  Ivanovski  instances  the  Canon 
or  Rule  of  divine  service  {Ustav  =  tvitlkov)  printed  in  1610,  of 
which  the  Patriarch  Philaret  was  obhged  subsequently  to 
collect  and  burn  all  copies,  because  its  contents  were  of  so 
startling  and  unauthorized  a  character.  I  should  conjecture 
that  they  were  merely  archaic  and  original,  and  not  in  accord 
with  then  current  standards  of  orthodoxy.  I  once  saw  the 
copies  of  old  Nestorian  codices  upon  which  was  based  Bedjan's 
great  repertoire  of  the  liturgies  of  that  ancient  church,  so 
beautifully  printed  at  the  Propaganda  press  in  Rome.  The 
copies  were  plentifully  scored  and  underlined  with  red  and  blue 
chalk;  the  red  signifying,  so  I  was  informed,  passages  to  be 
entirely  removed,  the  blue  those  to  be  amended  in  the  interests 
of  Roman  orthodoxy;  and  I  regretted  greatly  that  these  origi- 
nal readings  were  not  given  in  an  appendix  or  otherwise  re- 
corded for  the  use  of  scholars.  In  mentioning  this  case,  I 
convey  no  censure  of  the  Roman  Propaganda,  for  I  am  sure 
that  the  only  intelligible  procedure  is  that  on  which  Rome 
insists,  namely,  on  the  one  hand  to  print  for  modern  church 
use  officially  authorized  texts  agreeable  to  current  standards 
of  orthodoxy,  and  on  the  other  to  allow  scholars  and  liturgiolo- 
gists  to  edit  for  the  learned  world  the  more  ancient  texts 
exactly  as  they  stand  in  the  most  ancient  codices.  This 
procedure  the  Roman  Church  follows  in  the  case  of  Latin 
texts,  and  it  encourages  the  Uniat  Churches  to  do  the  same. 


38  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

No  objection,  for  example,  is  placed  in  the  way  of  the  Armenian 
Mekhitarists  of  Vienna  and  Venice,  if  they  like  to  print  for 
liturgical  scholars  an  Euchologion  containing  the  ancient 
rites  for  the  sacrifice  of  birds  and  f ourfooted  animals ;  but  they 
would  not  be  allowed  to  print  these  interesting  but  out  of 
date  rites  and  disseminate  them  for  popular  use. 

A  number  of  grammarians  and  rhetoricians  were  employed 
by  the  patriarch  Philaret  (1612)  to  assist  in  editing  the  Church 
books,  among  them  the  Elder  Arsenius  the  Deaf,  Antony 
Krylov,  the  priest  Ivan  Nasedkin  already  mentioned,  Elias 
the  hegumen  of  the  Theophany  convent  and  even  a  layman 
Gregory  Onisimov.  One  or  two  of  these  could  read  Greek,  but 
made  no  use  of  their  gift.  But  it  marked  a  real  advance  when 
the  Patriarch  ordered  a  search  to  be  made  for  older  MSS. 
in  other  cities  besides  Moscow.  Even  texts  written  by  the 
western  Slavs  were  collected,  though  sparingly  consulted  from 
fear  of  their  having  been  contaminated  by  Latin  influences. 
Philaret's  efforts  were  of  course  doomed  to  disappointment, 
and  Ivanovski  remarks  that  between  later  and  earlier  editions 
of  the  same  service  book  wide  discrepancies  were  discovered  as 
soon  as  they  were  compared,  especially  in  the  rites  of  Epiphany 
and  of  Baptism;  again,  the  Euchologia  printed  in  1625  and  1633 
included  the  rites  for  the  adoption  of  children  and  of  brethren 
{aBeX(f)07roLia)  given  in  Greek  prayerbooks;  that  of  1623  omitted 
them.  It  is  clear  that  what  the  Russian  Church  dignitaries 
were  intent  upon  was  uniformity,  and  it  was  bound  to  be  a 
mere  accident  if,  in  arriving  at  it,  they  did  not  exclude  much 
that  was  old  and  had  better  have  been  retained,  and  include 
much  modern  rubbish  which  it  was  better  to  omit. 

The  Patriarch  Joasaph  who  succeeded  Philaret  in  1634,  and 
died  Nov.  28,  1640,  issued  edition  after  edition  of  Psalter, 
Euchologion,  Menaea,  Hours,  Gospels,  Triodion,  Nomocanon, 
etc.  Though  he  too  insisted  on  old  MSS.  being  consulted, 
he  only  made  confusion  worse  confounded;  and  some  of  the 
books  printed  by  his  authority  were  in  startUng  disaccord 
with  his  predecessor's  editions,  especially  the  Euchologion 
of  1639,  which  stigmatized  Philaret's  rite  for  the  Burial  of 
Priests  as  having  been  drawn  up  by  the  heretical  pope  Jeremia 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  39 

of  Bulgaria.  Among  the  new  books  issued  by  him  were  a 
spelling  book,  an  anthologion,  a  Triodion  in  four  volumes, 
and  a  life  of  Nicholas  the  Wonder-worker. 

The  activity  of  the  Moscow  Press  was  great  under  the 
next  Patriarch,  Joseph,  who  acceded  in  March,  1642.^  He  ap- 
pointed Ivan,  sacristan  of  the  Uspenski  Church;  Joseph  Nased- 
kin,  the  controverter  of  the  Lutheran  propagandist  Prince 
Valdemar  of  Denmark,  Protopope  Michael  Stephen  Rogov; 
Silvester,  archimandrite  of  the  Androniev  Monastery,  Joannes, 
Protopope  of  the  Alexandronevski  Church  along  with  certain 
presbyters  and  lajonen  as  a  college  of  "correctors."  But  they 
did  not  go  beyond  Slav  books  in  their  quest  for  correcter 
texts,  and  the  press  under  the  direct  management  of  the  Tsar's 
favourite  divine,  Stephan  Boniface,  and  of  John  Neronov,  Pro- 
topope of  the  Kazan  Church,  for  the  most  part  merely  issued 
reprints  of  the  earher  editions  of  the  Patriarchs  Job,  Philaret, 
and  Joasaph.  Some  sUght  changes,  however,  were  now  made  to 
suit  the  prescriptions  of  the  Stoglav  Council  of  ninety  years 
before.  Thus  the  passage  where  in  earUer  editions  the  Alleluia 
was  thrice  repeated,  was  now  printed:  ''Alleluia,  Alleluia, 
glory  to  thee,  0  God."  At  the  same  time  a  CyriUic  rubric 
appeared  in  the  Psalter,  enjoining  the  faithful  to  cross  them- 
selves with  two  fingers  instead  of  three  conjoined.  Editors 
and  controllers  of  the  new  presses  generally  adopted  the  two 
fingers,  though  within  a  few  years  the  question  of  two  or  three 
fingers  was  to  become  a  burning  one.  The  Stoglav  Council 
had  enjoined  the  use  of  the  two  fingers  only.  A  Russian 
grammar  was  printed  in  1648,  a  Lives  of  Saints  in  1646, 
HomiUes  of  Ephrem  Syrus  in  1643,  a  catena  on  the  gospels 
by  Theophylact  the  Bulgarian,  Anastasius  Sinaita,  '^nd  others 
in  1649. 

It  speaks  well  for  the  Tsar  Alexis  Michailovich,  that  he 
undertook  in  May  1649  an  edition  of  the  Russian  Bible  revised 
from  the  Greek  original,  and  wrote  to  the  half  PoUsh  Metro- 
poUtan  of  Kiev,  Silvester  Kossov,  to  send  to  him  scholars 
competent  for  the  task.^    Two  monks  arrived,  Epiphan  Slave- 

1  Macarius  Hist.  t.  11,  pp.  94-97. 

2  Macarius  Hist.  t.  12,  p.  112  foil.  Christian  Readings  1883,  Nov.-Dec.  Art. 
Materials  for  Russian  History.  y ' 


40  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

netski  and  Arsenius  Satanovski,  an  ill-sounding,  but  really 
local  name.  A  young  seigneur,  Theodor  Michailovich  Rtish- 
chev  (1625-1673),  shared  his  prince's  enthusiasm,  and  at  his 
own  expense  erected  outside  Moscow,  on  the  Kiev  road,  two 
versts  away,  a  monastery  in  which  the  newly  arrived  teachers 
of  Greek,  of  grammar,  and  of  rhetoric,  were  to  find  a  home.  He 
himself  w  as  their  first  pupil,  and  the  learned  men  assembled  there 
began  at  once  the  work  of  collating  Slav  texts  with  the  Greek, 
and  presently  gave  their  results  to  the  world  in  a  new  edition 
of  the  Church  book  called  the  Shestodnev  (Hexahemeron) ; 
first  printed  in  Cracow  in  the  year  1491.  This  was  the  first 
work  to  be  revised  from  'good'  Slav  MSS.  and  at  the  same  time 
from  a  Greek  text,  and  Nikon  put  it  forward  as  an  example  for 
future  editors  of  sacred  texts.  At  the  instance  of  this  Tsar 
sundry  Greek  divines  now  began  to  visit  Moscow,  where  alone 
in  the  Orthodox  world  they  could  collect  alms  for  themselves. 
One  of  the  best-known  was  Paisius,  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  who 
stayed  there  four  months  during  which  he  consecrated  Nikon 
archbishop  of  Novgorod,  and  had  time,  according  to  Nikon, 
to  notice  not  a  few  ritual  discrepancies  between  his  own  and 
the  Russian  Church.  The  result  was  that  a  Russian  Presbyter, 
who  knew  Greek,  Arsen  Sukhanov,  was  commissioned  in  1649 
to  accompany  Paisius,  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  on  his  return 
in  order  to  report  upon  Greek  rites.  Arsen  was  a  cultivated 
man  for  his  age  and  architect  of  the  Theophany  convent 
in  the  Kremlin,  a  dependency  of  the  Trinity-Serge  Laura, 
and  a  partisan  in  rehgion  of  the  old  national  tradition.  On 
their  way  they  halted  at  Jassy,  in  Roumania.  In  the  sequel 
he  twice  went  to  Greece  and  back,  and  in  the  course  of  one  of 
his  journeys  brought  back  some  hundreds  of  Greek  codices 
which  are  among  the  treasures  of  the  Synodal  Ubrary  of 
Moscow.  For  this  alone  his  name  deserves  to  be  remembered. 
He  also  pubhshed  the  results  of  his  investigations  in  four  ^'Dia- 
logues upon  Faith  with  the  Greeks,''  ^  in  which  he  somewhat 

*  Prenia  o  VierU.  It  is  doubtful  if  they  were  written  as  early  as  1650;  the 
Proskinitari  (i.  e.  Worshipper),  on  which  see  below  p.  44,  was  written  after  his 
return  from  the  East  in  1653.  In  the  first  dialogue  held  April  24,  1650,  the 
Patriarch  Meletius,  Metropolitan  of  Braila,  challenges  the  Riissian  use  of  two 
fingers  only  in  blessing,  and  Arsenius  defends  it  as  the  usage  of  St.  Andrew,  the 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  41 

wavered  over  the  use  of  the  three  fingers  in  blessing,  though  he 
observed  it  among  the  monks  of  Athos.  We  shall  see  later  on 
that  members  of  the  Raskol  appealed  to  Arsen's  work  in  evi- 
dence of  the  fatal  decadence  and  even  apostasy  of  the  Greeks; 
judged  from  an  old  Russian  standpoint,  with  no  Uttle  reason. 
About  the  same  time  Gabriel,  metropoUtan  of  Nazareth  visited 
Moscow,  and  while  there  took  no  less  exception  to  the  use  of 
two  fingers  than  his  colleague  of  Jerusalem. 

Nikon 

In  1652  the  patriarch  Joseph  died,  to  be  followed  by  one  whose 
fanaticism  was  to  break  the  orthodox  church  in  two  over 
utterly  insignificant  issues,  and  originate  a  schism  which  lasts 
until  to-day  with  results  to  Russian  society  and  polity  of  which 
the  importance  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 

This  was  Nikon,^  named  Nicetas  in  the  world  before  he 
donned  the  monastic  garb.  Born  in  1605  of  peasant  and  pos- 
sibly Finnish  stock  in  Veldemanov,  a  village  in  the  province  of 
Nizhegorod,  he  learned  to  read  and  write  at  the  village  school, 
bringing  to  his  task  the  rugged  strength  and  superstitious 
temperament  of  a  common  peasant.  At  twelve  years  of  age 
he  entered  the  monastery  of  St.  Macarius  of  Zheltovody  on  the 
Volga  in  the  same  Government,  where  he  soon  distinguished 
himself  above  other  novices  by  his  apphcation  to  learning  and 
his  asceticism.  When  he  was  twenty  his  parents  persuaded 
him  to  marry,  and,  ordained  one  of  the  white  clergy,  he  took  a 
cure  of  souls  in  Moscow;  before  he  was  thirty  his  three  chil- 
dren died,  and,  persuading  his  wife  to  take  the  veil,  he  himself 
took  monkish  vows  and  retired  to  the  Skete  or  hermitage  of 
Anzer  on  the  White  Sea.  His  was  an  imperious  nature,  and 
within  five  years,  in  consequence  of  a  quarrel  with  his  col- 
leagues over  the  building  of  a  church,  he  departed  thence  to 
become  the  hegumen  or  prior  of  the  Kozheozerski  ^  Monastery 

illuminator  of  Russia.  Arsenius  equally  maintains  the  Russian  baptism  by  triple 
immerson  to  have  been  introduced  in  Russia  by  the  Apostle  and  condemns  the 
Greek  usage  of  baptising  sick  infants  by  sprinkling  only. 

1  Strannik  1863,  t.  3:  Macarius  Hist.  t.  11:  Solovev.  Hist.  Rms.  t.  11. 

2  Perhaps  Kusheryetskoe,  close  to  Onega,  in  the  railway  map  of  A.  Ilin  of  1908. 
Waliszewski,  however,  locates  it  in  the  district  of  Kargopol  in  the  eparchy  of 
Novgorod,  so  also  the  Russian  Encyclopedia,  xxi,  139. 


42  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

on  Lake  Kozhe  on  the  western  shore  of  the  White  Sea,  In  that 
capacity  he  had  occasion  to  visit  Moscow  to  attend  a  council 
held  there  in  1645-6.  There  he  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
Tsar  Alexis  who  preferred  him  to  the  position  of  archimandrite 
in  the  Novospasski  convent  in  the  Capital.  The  Tsar  entrusted 
him  with  the  fulfilment  of  many  pubhc  duties  and  invited  him 
every  week  to  the  Kremhn  in  order  to  converse  with  him,  and 
it  is  a  good  trait  in  the  ecclesiastic  that  he  availed  himself  of 
his  intimacy  with  the  Prince  to  intercede  in  behalf  of  widows 
and  orphans  denied  their  rights  by  venal  courts  of  justice. 

Two  years  later  he  was  made  Metropohtan  of  Novgorod 
where  he  helped  to  put  down  the  revolt  of  1650,  sheltering  in 
his  own  house  the  Voivoda  KMlkov,  when  his  own  hfe  also  was 
threatened  by  the  populace.  In  July  1652,  at  the  age  of 
forty- seven,  he  was  chosen  patriarch  at  the  Tsar's  instance, 
though  on  his  own  terms,  and  with  the  approval  of  Synod, 
clergy  and  people,  who  had  to  go  down  on  their  knees  to  him 
before  he  would  accept  the  Patriarchate.  He  was  already, 
as  we  saw,  a  favourite  with  the  Tsar,  who  presently  (1654) 
conferred  on  him  the  title  and  authority  of  grand  vizier, 
Gosudar  or  Regent,  never  till  then  conferred  on  anyone  except 
Philaret,  Patriarch  in  1618,  and  the  father  of  Michael  Theo- 
dorovitch  the  first  of  the  Romanov's.  When  the  Tsar  was 
away  conducting  his  wars,  it  now  devolved  on  Nikon  to  look 
after  his  family,  govern  the  State  and  control  the  Boyars  or 
great  nobles  who  had  to  make  to  him  the  reports  which  they 
ordinarily  made  to  the  sovereign,  and  render  to  him  an  account 
of  all  their  doings. 

Historians  give  no  unfavom-able  picture  of  his  activity  at 
the  beginning  of  his  patriarchate.  He  was  severe  indeed  with 
his  clergy  and  so  rigid  a  disciphnarian  that  some  charged  him 
with  being  a  tyrant,  but  in  so  disorderly  an  age  it  was  necessary 
to  be  strict.  One  step  he  took  at  once  which  conmiends  itself 
to  all  Church  reformers.  Instead  of  the  ready-made  homihes 
for  all  sorts  of  occasions  he  tried  to  revive  the  art  of  preach- 
ing, and  encouraged  his  clergy  to  use  their  natural  gifts  of 
eloquence.  This  was  to  innovate  on  old  custom,  and  contrasts 
with  the  system  which  was  in  vogue  in  the  Russian  Church  a 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  43 

few  years  ago,  if  it  is  not  still/  of  obliging  the  clergy  to  submit 
their  sermons  to  censors  before  they  are  delivered  from  the 
pulpit.  Another  of  his  aims  was  to  introduce  uniformity,  a 
measure  which  needed  much  tact  in  view  of  the  discrepancies 
which  existed  between  the  rites  of  one  place  and  another,  for 
editions  of  church-books  differed  and  still  more  widely  the 
manuscript  copies  still  in  vogue;  and  in  different  localities  the 
clergy  and  monks  were  likely  to  be  jealous  of  interference  with 
rites  already  in  use.  But  there  was  also  much  disorder  in 
Church  Services  that  called  for  instant  correction;  for  example 
it  was  only  decent  that  prayers  and  canticles  should  be  recited 
or  sung  in  one  tone  unisono,  and  not  in  several  at  once,  and  it 
was  a  scandal  that  in  order  to  get  through  the  liturgy  as  quickly 
as  possible  it  was  customary  for  one  priest  to  be  reading, 
another  singing,  and  the  deacon  crying  his  ecteni,  all  three 
at  once.  In  the  church  singing  it  was  also  usual  to  interpolate 
vowels  and  prolong  the  voice  upon  them  to  the  detriment 
of  the  sense.  This  was,  it  appears,  an  offence  in  Nikon's  eyes, 
though  it  is  not  unknown  in  other  Churches,  and  as  it  is  the 
rule  in  the  Armenian  Church,  it  may  have  been  ancient  in  the 
Slav  Churches.  Most  of  these  irregularities  had  already 
been  reproved  by  the  Stoglav  Council,  as  well  as  by  the  Patri- 
archs Hermogenes  and  Joseph,  but  in  vain.  Nikon  now  set 
about  to  correct  them  by  sterner  methods,  and  he  also  lost  no 
time  in  chastising  the  fashionable  artists  who  were  beginning 
to  paint  ikons  for  rich  men's  houses  in  the  gaudy  style  of  the 
Latins.  He  collected  their  masterpieces,  burned  them,  and 
on  pain  of  anathema  forbade  painters  for  the  future  to  prosti- 
tute in  such  a  manner  their  sacred  craft.  In  spite,  however, 
of  such  conservatism  in  the  matter  of  art,  Nikon  threw  the 
weight  of  his  authority  on  the  side  of  those  who  favoured  the 
correcting  of  the  old  rites  and  service  books,  and  even  headed 
the  new  movement,  choosing  Greek  and  Slav  of  western  origin 
as  his  models.     ''Though  I  am  Russian,'  he  said  at  the  Council 

^  Pobedonostseff,  Procurator  of  the  holy  Synod,  in  his  Reflections  of  a  Russian 
Statesman  (London  1898),  after  insisting  on  the  want  of  simplicity,  unnatural 
intonation,  conventional  phrases  of  Protestant  preachers,  adds:  "We  feel  here 
how  faithfully  our  Church  has  been  adapted  to  human  natm-e  in  excluding  sermons 
from  its  services.     By  itself  our  whole  service  is  the  best  of  sermons,"  p.  214. 


44  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  1656,  'I  am  in  faith  and  convictions  a  Greek."  Accordingly 
he  introduced  Greek  ambons,  Greek  pastoral  staffs,  Greek 
cowls,  cloaks,  hymns,  painters,  silversmiths,  Greek  architec- 
ture. He  invited  Greeks  to  Moscow  and  followed  their  advice 
in  everything. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  trips  to  Greek  centres  under- 
taken by  Arsen  Sukhanov  at  the  instance  of  the  Tsar  Michael. 
When  he  returned  to  Moscow  in  June  1653  he  dedicated  a  vol- 
ume entitled  Proskinitari  to  his  prince  and  to  the  new  Patriarch 
Nikon;  to  this  book,  although  it  barely  influenced  the  latter's 
reforms,  as  it  had  been  intended  to  do,  a  certain  importance 
attaches,  because  upon  it,  as  upon  his  four  discussions  with  the 
Greeks,  alluded  to  above  (p.  40),  the  Raskol  teachers  later 
on  based  their  charge  of  apostasy  against  the  Greeks,  a  charge 
sufficiently  absurd  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  author  expresses 
no  sort  of  doubt  about  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Greek  Churches 
and  even  regards  them,  especially  that  of  Alexandria,  as  a 
court  of  appeal  for  the  resolution  of  doubts  which  had  arisen 
in  Russia  with  regard  to  particular  points  of  ritual.  It  con- 
tained a  pilgrim's  guide  to  the  Holy  Places,  of  the  kind  familiar 
in  the  early  literature  of  every  church,  along  with  the  answers 
of  the  Alexandrine  Patriarch  to  certain  questions  propounded 
by  Arsen.  One  of  these  regarded  the  Alleluia,  as  to  which 
the  Patriarch  decided  that  it  ought  to  be  repeated  thrice  with 
the  addition  of  the  words:  "Glory  to  thee,  0  God!"  Arsen 
notes  sundry  liturgical  variations  in  the  Greek  Churches  from 
Russian  usage,  e.  g.  the  use  in  the  Eucharistic  office  of  only 
five  prosphorai  instead  of  seven,  withershins  processions,  etc. 
But  it  was  especially  the  concessions  to  Western  or  Latin 
usages  that  shocked  him;  for  example,  they  admitted  baptism 
by  sprinkling,  they  had  adopted  Prankish  vestments;  they  as- 
sociated with  the  Franks  even  in  church,  ate  in  their  society 
and  intermarried  with  them.  In  Jerusalem  the  orthodox  and 
Armenian  patriarchs  visited  one  another  and  went  to  church 
together.  The  Armenian  even  dehvered  the  Benediction  in 
church,  and  afterwards  entertained  the  Greek  patriarch,  the 
Turkish  pasha  being  among  the  guests. ^ 

*  From  time  immemorial  the  monophysite  Armenians  have  shared  the  Church 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  45 

Arsen  also  criticised  the  slovenliness  with  which  the 
Greeks  conducted  their  services.  Their  priests,  no  less  than 
their  laity,  wore  turbans  in  church,  and  the  monks  attended 
without  their  cloaks.  Their  Patriarch  ate  sweetmeats  in  Lent 
and  on  fast  days ;  at  Bethlehem  on  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  a 
mass  of  pilgrims  slept  in  the  church  and  defiled  it.  The  ref- 
erence here  is  hardly  to  the  usage  of  incubation  in  a  church, 
which  still  lasted  on  in  the  Caucasian  Chiirches,  especially 
on  the  night  of  the  Feast  of  St.  John.  Probably  the  pilgrims 
used  the  Church  of  Bethlehem  as  a  caravanserai.  Is  it  possible, 
however,  that  Arsen  merely  witnessed  the  all-night  service 
which  we  find  in  old  Eastern  prayerbooks,  e.  g.  in  the  Armenian? 
It  is  noteworthy  that  he  says  nothing  in  the  book  either  for  or 
against  the  use  of  the  two  fingers  in  blessing. 

This  wholesale  canonization  was  both  cause  and  effect  of 
the  growing  belief  that  Moscow  was  the  third  Rome.  Russia 
was  no  longer  beholden  to  a  Constantinople  that  was  become  a 
centre  of  Mahommedan  heresy.  The  Sun  of  righteousness  there 
eclipsed  shone  afresh  on  the  Moskva. 

Three  men  above  others  had  worked  for  this  triumph  of 
nationahsm  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere,  Joseph  Sanin,  prior  and 
founder  of  the  Volokolam  monastery  and  his  disciples  Daniel 
and  Macarius,  both  metropoUtans  of  Moscow.  They  repre- 
sented three  generations  from  1500  to  1550.  Their  monastery 
was  a  fashionable  training  school  for  the  higher  clergy  and  a 
focus  of  nationaUst  propaganda.  They  had  not  however 
Nikon's  idea  of  asserting  the  rights  of  the  Church  as  such; 
and  consohdation  of  the  spiritual  ran  for  them  hand  in  hand 
with  aggrandisement  of  the  Moscovite  despotic  state.  The 
Church  consecrated  the  State  which  in  return  protected  it  and 
guaranteed  its  privileges.  The  way  was  marked  out  for  the 
Church  in  Russia  to  become  what  it  was  in  old  Byzantium,  the 
humble  servant  of  secular  despotism.  Nikon  a  century  later 
essayed  to  free  the  Church  of  which  he  was  the  head  from 

of  the  Sepulchre  with  the  Latins  and  Greeks  and  great  pictures  of  their  saints 
adorn  its  walls.  If  ever  the  Holy  Synod  of  Moscow  acquires  jurisdiction  over 
the  Holy  places,  the  Armenian  heretics  certainly,  and  the  Latin  schismatics 
probably,  will  be  served  with  notices  to  quit. 


46  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Erastian  control.  He  met  the  fate  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canter- 
bury. He  championed  the  Patriarchal  against  the  Imperial 
prerogatives,  and  failed.  His  failure  signified  the  erection  in 
Russia  of  a  lay  Papacy  of  the  Tsar  which  lasted  until  yesterday. 

Nikon's  Reforms 

Shchapov  fifty  years  ago  compared  the  Raskol  to  Lot's 
wife  who  looked  back,  and  in  the  act  of  doing  so  was  turned  into 
a  pillar  of  salt.  The  comparison  is  unfair;  for  the  schism  was 
for  those  who  engaged  in  it  the  beginning  of  religious  emanci- 
pation, of  inward  liberty  and  comparative  enUghtenment. 
It  is  the  dominant  orthodox  Church  which  may  rather  be 
accused  of  petrifaction  and  putrifaction.  It  remains  true 
however  that  the  Raskol  leaders  in  the  17th  century  stood  for 
the  exclusive  nationalism  in  spiritual  matters  that  had  tri- 
umphed a  hundred  years  earlier  under  Ivan  in  the  Stoglav 
council.  They  could  not  rid  themselves  of  the  old  suspicion 
of  the  Levantine  Greek.  Nikon  conquered  it,  and  even  headed 
a  reaction  against  a  nationalism  which  prejudiced  the  ecumen- 
icity of  his  country's  Church,  and  was  an  implicit  negation  of 
its  claim  to  be  a  worldwide  and  ancient  faith.  In  his  ignorant 
zeal  for  ecumenicity  he  was  ready  to  adopt  from  the  fawning 
Greek  ecclesiastics,  whom  he  invited  to  Moscow  and  who  were 
ready  to  deceive  him,  much  that  was  merely  modern,  much  that 
was  trivial.  The  partisans  of  antiquity  were  shocked  to  note 
how  whimsical  were  his  alterations  of  the  old  service  books. 
Why  substitute  temple  for  church  and  vice  versa?  Why  change 
children  into  scions,  cross  into  tree,  and  so  on?  Why  was  a 
new  fangled  phrase  better  than  an  old  one?  How  did  the  old 
reading  violate  di\ine  writ?  They  discerned  accordingly  httle 
in  his  corrections  but  wilful  hatred  of  the  old,  and  parodied  his 
instructions  to  Arsenius  thus:  '^ Print  the  books  as  you  Uke, 
provided  only  you  discard  the  old  way." 

Their  disgust  with  the  correctors  was  complete,  when  it  was 
found  —  what  modern  scholarship  confirms  —  that  they  did 
not  in  practice  adhere  to  their  own  canon  of  comparing  the 
Cyrillic  texts  with  old  Greek  books.  Recent  hturgical  scholars 
in  Russia  have  shewn  that  of  the  500  Greek  MSS.  brought  to 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  47 

Moscow  by  Sukhanov  for  Nikon's  use  from  the  East  only- 
seven  were  consulted  in  editing  the  service  books  afresh.  The 
Greek  euchologion  printed  by  the  Latins  at  Venice  in  1602  was 
almost  the  only  text  which  they  regularly  employed.  Nikon's 
intentions  no  doubt  were  good,  but  he  and  his  band  lacked  the 
scholarship  necessary  to  carry  them  out.  Well  might  Awa- 
kum,  the  Raskol  leader,  write  to  the  Tsar  as  follows:  "Thou, 
Michailovich,  art  a  Russian,  not  a  Greek.  Then  use  your 
own  native  tongue,  and  forbear  to  depreciate  it  in  Church,  in 
home  and  elsewhere.  Does  God  love  us  less  than  the  Greeks? 
Has  he  not  given  us  our  books  in  our  own  tongue  by  the  hand 
of  Cyril  and  Methodius?  What  do  we  want  better  than  that? 
The  tongue  of  angels?  Alas,  that  we  may  not  hear  until  the 
general  resurrection  comes!"  It  was  Nikon's  substitution, 
probably  suggested  by  Latin  texts  in  which  it  survives,  of 
Kyrie  eleison  for  the  old  Russian  equivalent  Gospodi  pomilui 
which  motived  this  outburst.  Awakum  and  his  partisans, 
notably  Ivan  Neronov  and  Stephan  Boniface,  were  not  in 
principle  opposed  to  the  use  of  Greek  texts  in  editing  the 
Russian  ones.  Under  the  patriarch  Joseph  (died  1652)  they 
had  even  participated  in  the  work  of  revision  led  by  the 
learned  monks  whom  Rtishchev  brought  from  Kiev;  and  the 
old  beUevers  still  use  today  the  editions  printed  under  Joseph. 
Their  revolt  was  due  to  three  causes:  the  violence  of  Nikon, 
the  capricious  manner  in  which  under  his  auspices  their  Church 
was  being  Grecized,  and  the  insolence  with  which  the  monks 
of  Athos  condemned  their  earher  essays  in  correction  and 
made  a  bonfire  of  the  service  books  printed  in  Moscow. 

Having  equipped  himself,  as  he  imagined,  with  the  authority 
of  the  Sister  Churches,  Nikon  took  the  first  step  in  1653  of 
imposing  the  use  of  three  fingers  in  blessing.  This  at  once 
evoked  a  protest  from  Paul,  bishop  of  Kolomna,  from  Ivan 
Neronov,  Protopope  of  the  Kazanski  church  and  from  another 
Protopope  Awakum,  or  as  we  say,  Habakkuk,  of  the  ancient 
Yurievets  convent  on  the  Volga  who  was  staying  in  Moscow. 
''It  looks  like  winter  coming,"  the  latter  is  said  to  have 
remarked;  and  with  the  aid  of  another  Protopope,  Daniel  of 
Kostroma,  he  proceeded  to  draw  up  a  catena  of  authorities  in 


48  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

support  of  the  use  of  two  fingers  —  no  less  Greek  in  origin 
than  the  rival  use  — and  of  the  old  fashion  in  the  matter  of 
prostrations.  They  presented  their  catena  to  the  Tsar,  thereby 
embittering  not  a  little  their  relations  with  Nikon,  to  whom  the 
Tsar  passed  it  on  and  whose  election  as  patriarch  they  had 
opposed.  They  pretended  that  any  books  corrected  before 
Nikon  were  orthodox,  any  after  him  Latin  and  heretical. 
There  was  nothing  he  could  do  or  suggest  that  was  right. 
But  Nikon  was  too  strong  for  them  and  Neronov  quickly 
found  himself  relegated  to  the  Kamenski  Monastery  on  the 
Kubenski  lake  near  Vologda.  Awakum  also  found  himself 
excluded  by  his  fellow  clergy  from  the  Kazanski  Church  when 
he  went  thither  prepared  to  celebrate  as  usual  and  read  his 
sermon  to  the  congregation;  thereupon  he  retired  to  Neronov's 
house,  where  he  read  vespers  in  the  bath-house  and  succeeded 
in  getting  some  of  his  old  parishioners  to  attend  his  ministra- 
tions. He  did  not,  however,  despair  of  the  Tsar,  and,  in  con- 
junction with  other  Protopopes,  Daniel  of  Kostroma  and 
Longinus  of  Murom,  who  had  been  correctors  of  Service  books 
for  the  press  under  the  Patriarch  Joseph,  drew  up  a  petition 
and  despatched  it  to  his  prince.  The  only  result  was  that 
Daniel  was  unfrocked  and  exiled  to  Astrakhan  where  he  died; 
Longinus  was  also  unfrocked,  and  banished  to  Murom.  Awa- 
kum, still  a  young  man  (he  was  born  near  Novgorod  in  1620) 
was  spared  at  the  Tsar's  instance  and  banished  with  all  his 
family  to  the  depths  of  Siberia,  to  the  region  called  Daura. 
On  his  way  thither  he  sowed  the  seeds  of  religious  revolt. 
Such  was  the  result  of  trying  to  preserve  a  mode  of  blessing 
himself  which  every  Russian  had  learned  on  his  mother's  knee, 
Nikon  himself  among  others. 

From  his  place  of  exile  Neronov  wrote  to  the  Tsar,  accusing 
Nikon  of  heresy,  and  the  latter,  aware  of  the  fact  that  his  prince 
was  not  yet  won  over  to  the  use  of  two  fingers, —  as  according 
to  Ivanovski,  Nikon  himself  was  not  at  this  stage,  having  only 
taken  action  to  please  his  Greek  colleagues, —  resolved  to  lay 
matters  before  a  Council,  which  was  accordingly  convened  in 
1654  in  the  royal  palace.  Before  it  Nikon,  no  doubt  ignorantly, 
condemned  the  secret  recitation  at  the  beginning  of  the  liturgy 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  49 

of  the  priest's  prayer  for  remission  of  his  sins, —  a  topic  I  have 
discussed  above;  and  he  also  urged  the  practice  of  depositing 
rehcs  under  the  altar  when  a  church  was  first  consecrated. 
He  thus  reserved  the  issue  of  the  two  fingers,  but  in  other 
respects  aspired  to  change  old  customs  in  accordance  with  the 
Greek  books.  The  plan  of  issuing  corrected  service  books  was 
not  opposed,  though  it  was  found  impossible  to  come  to  an 
agreement  about  prostrations  and  genuflexions.  In  support 
of  the  old  rule  on  such  points  observed  in  Moscow,  Paul  of 
Kolomna,  appealed  to  an  old  parchment,  and  recorded  his 
opinion  in  the  acts  of  the  Council.  By  doing  so  he  drew  down 
on  his  head  the  wrath  of  Nikon  who  objected  to  learning  when 
it  did  not  accord  with  his  views.  No  sooner  was  the  Council 
at  an  end,  than  Paul  was  expelled  from  his  see,  subjected  to 
corporal  punishment  and  locked  up  in  prison  where  he  lost 
his  reason  and  died  in  a  manner  unrecorded.  The  Raskolniki 
of  the  time,  however,  testify  that  he  was  burned  aUve  near 
Novgorod. 

Nikon  had  already  despatched  afresh  Arsenius  Sukhanov,  on 
his  return  to  Moscow,  to  Athos  and  other  centres  of  the  East 
in  quest  of  Greek  originals  on  which  to  base  the  revision  he  had 
in  mind  of  the  old  Russian  service  books;  for  the  proceedings 
of  1653-4  seem  to  have  inspired  even  him  with  misgivings,  not 
to  be  silenced  by  any  knouting  and  exiUng  of  his  opponents. 
Accordingly  he  had  resolved  in  1654  to  send  a  fresh  mission  of 
enquiry  to  Constantinople,  and  this  time  he  selected  a  Greek 
named  Manuel,  who  had  lived  for  a  time  in  Moscow,  to  lay 
his  queries  before  the  Patriarch  Paisius  and  the  doctors  of  New 
Rome.  A  year  later  about  May  1655,  Manuel  returned  with 
the  answers  which  Paisius  ^  of  Constantinople  had  penned 
Dec.  1654  to  the  twenty-eight  queries  put  to  him  by  Nikon, 
and  being  on  his  own  ground  Paisius,  after  dealing  with  them, 
ventured  to  address  to  Nikon  some  very  sound  advice  as  to  the 
necessity  of  compromise  in  such  trumpery  disputes:  "You 
complain,"  he  wrote,  ''of  discrepancies  on  certain  points  of 
ritual  which  exist  in  local  churches,  and  you  apprehend  harm 
to  our  faith  from  these  differences.    For  that  much  I  conmiend 

1  Christ.  Readings,  1881,  No.  3-4. 


50  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

you,  since  one  who  so  keenly  fears  to  slip  in  small  things  is 
hkely  to  safeguard  himself  in  great;    nevertheless  we  would 

correct  your  timidity If  it  should  happen  that  certain 

churches  vary  from  others  in  usages  of  no  importance  and 
unessential  for  the  faith,  for  example  with  regard  to  the  time  ^ 
when  the  Hturgy  is  performed  or  over  the  question  with  what 
fingers  a  priest  ought  to  bless,^  and  such  like,  these  issues  should 
provoke  no  dissensions . . .  Nor  ought  we  to  imagine  it  to  be 
prejudicial  to  our  orthodoxy,  that  somebody  or  other  enter- 
tains other  modes  of  ritual  observance  than  ourselves  in  matters 
that  are  not  essential  to  the  Faith."  He  appeals  to  Epi- 
phanius  and  other  Fathers  in  proof  that  rites  had  grown  up 
little  by  little  and  were  never  uniform. 

As  to  Nikon's  queries  with  regard  to  the  Sacraments  he 
writes:  "As  touching  the  polemics  which  you  raise  over  the 
rite  of  the  divine  Sacrament,  we  implore  you  to  put  a  stop  to 
them;  for  a  servant  of  the  Lord  it  is  unbecoming  to  embroil 
himself  over  trifles  which  do  not  belong  to  the  articles  of 
faith."  This  good  advice  Paisius  tendered  in  the  name  of  the 
Council  he  had  convoked  at  Constantinople  to  discuss  the 
Russian  business.    It  was  attended  by  24  metropohtans. 

None  the  less  Paisius  tempers  these  mild  rebukes  with  stern 
reproaches  against  Nikon's  opponents,  Paul  of  Kolomna  and 
Ivan  Neronov,  who  had  denied  their  signatures  to  the  decrees 
of  the  Moscow  synod  of  1654.  They  are  corrupt  and  stiff- 
necked  schismatics  whom  Nikon  will  do  well  to  excommunicate, 
because  they  have  impugned  the  vahdity  of  the  prayers  that 
Paisius  and  other  Greek  Patriarchs  have  approved.  As  to 
the  number  of  fingers,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  Paisius 
regarded  it  as  a  matter  of  little  importance,  he  recognizes 
that  ancient  Greek  custom  in  making  the  sign  of  the  cross  was 
in  favor  of  joining  the  first  three  fingers,  for  the  three  joined 
together  symbohzed  the  Trinity  better  than  two.  The  epistle 
of  Paisius  was  accepted  later  on  as  authoritative  by  the  Russian 
Council  of  1667. 

'  The  Greeks  celebrated  at  the  third  hour,  except  on  Holy  Thursday  and  Sat- 
urday, when  the  service  was  held  in  the  evening,  as  in  Armenia. 

2  Palmer  in  his  work  "The  Patriarch  and  the  Tsar,"  vol.  II,  p.  408  inexplicably 
omits  the  words:  "with  what  fingers  to  bless." 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  51 

To  return  to  Nikon.  Duly  installed  as  patriarch,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  search  the  library  of  his  residence,  and  in  it  he  found 
a  chrysobuUa  or  patriarchal  document  relating  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Russian  Patriarchate  in  1589.  It  was  dated 
May  8,  1590  and  bore  the  subscriptions  of  the  Eastern  patri- 
archs, who  assisted,  Jeremiah  of  Constantinople,  ecumenical 
patriarch,  and  others.  In  it,  it  was  stipulated  that  the  said 
patriarch  must  in  all  matters  agree  with  them,  and  it  contained 
the  symbol  of  faith  in  Greek,  with  the  single  epithet  to  Kvptov 
(Lord  or  chief)  in  the  eighth  clause.  He  found  the  same 
symbol  inscribed  in  Greek  letters  upon  a  cope  brought  to 
Moscow  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  by  the  Metropoh- 
tan  Photius.  He  also  noted  sundry  omissions  and  additions 
in  the  service  books  of  his  Church. 

A  visit  was  paid  to  Moscow  in  April,  1653,  by  the  deposed 
Athanasius  Patellarius,  formerly  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, nine  months  after  Nikon's  elevation  to  his  new  dignity. 
Athanasius  died  in  April,  1654,  on  his  return  journey,  at  the 
monastery  of  Lubni  in  the  Government  of  Poltava,  but  during 
his  stay  in  Russia  in  receipt  of  royal  alms,  he  had  urged 
Nikon  not  to  insist  on  the  use  of  the  two  fingers  in  blessing,  and 
also  to  promulgate  the  rest  of  the  so-called  'reforms'  which 
he  was  minded  to  introduce,  regardless  of  the  circumstance 
that  they  directly  violated  the  decisions  of  the  Council  of 
Stoglav  or  a  hundred  heads. 

The  Council  of  Stoglav 

This  Coimcil  had  been  held  in  1551  expressly  to  decide 
many  of  the  issues  now  to  be  decided  by  Nikon  according  to 
his  newer  Hghts.  The  first  of  these  regarded  the  number  of 
fingers  to  be  extended  in  blessing  or  exorcising  oneself  or  others 
(it  is  all  the  same  thing)  with  the  sign  of  the  cross.  The 
Council  was  motived  in  its  decision  by  various  reasons :  because 
Christ  had  so  blessed  his  apostles  at  his  ascension;  because  the 
ikon  of  Tikhvin  at  Novgorod,  of  the  Mother  and  Child,  painted, 
hke  so  many  holy  pictures,  by  St.  Luke,  represented  the 
Messiah  extending  two  fingers,  and  not  one,  as  the  Monophy- 


52  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

sites,  or  three,  as  the  Latins  were  supposed  to  do.  Ivanovski 
irreverently  suggests  that  the  said  ikon  was  never  painted 
by  St.  Luke  at  all.  Thirdly,  the  Council  appealed  to  a  passage 
of  the  Father  Theodoret,  which  Ivanovski,  who  is  monstrously 
critical  when  by  being  so  he  can  upset  Old  believers,  declares 
to  be  supposititious.  He  deals  similarly  with  a  certain  legend 
about  S.  Meletius,  bishop  of  Sebaste  and  later  on  patriarch 
of  Alexandria,  and  shews  that  the  Stoglav  misinterpreted  their 
Theodoret  and  Sozomen. 

The  same  Council  had  insisted  on  a  double  Alleluia  as 
opposed  to  a  triple  one,  and  had  argued,  with  more  subtiUty 
than  we  might  expect  from  such  an  assembly,  that  as  the  word 
Alleluia  already  signified  the  same  thing  as  Glory  to  thee  God, 
therefore,  if  you  repeated  it  thrice  and  added  that  formula, 
you  really  repeated  it  four  times,  at  the  risk  of  implying  four 
persons  in  the  Trinity  instead  of  three, —  a  shocking  impiety 
of  which  in  the  fifth  and  succeeding  centuries  the  Armenians 
and  other  monophysites  commonly  accused  the  adherents  of  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon.  In  favour  of  the  double  Alleluia  the 
Stoglav  Fathers  also  adduced  an  old  '  Life '  of  S.  Euphrosyn  of 
Pskov  according  to  which  the  Virgin  herself  stood  sponsor,  in  a 
dream  she  vouchsafed  to  the  saint,  for  this  particular  usage. 
But  the  Council  of  1667,  which  could  be  critical  at  the  expense 
of  a  theological  antagonist,  unkindly  voted  this  'Life'  to  be 
an  apocryph.  We  have  already  noticed  that  the  Stoglav 
decided  in  favour  of  reciting  in  clause  8  of  the  symbol  not 
both,  but  only  one,  no  matter  which,  of  the  rival  epithets 
which  in  many  MSS.  dignified  the  Spirit.  Another  of  their 
canons.  No.  95,  is  of  peculiar  interest,  because  it  prescribes 
the  keeping  of  the  Sabbath,  no  less  than  of  the  Sunday,  as  a 
holy  day  or  feast,  in  accordance  with  the  so-called  canons  of  the 
Apostles,  already  abrogated  by  canon  29  of  the  Council  of 
Laodicea  of  A.  D,  343-381.  In  Russia  it  seems  that  the  former 
set  of  canons  were  ascribed  to  Saints  Peter  and  Paul,  and 
Joasaph,  a  Patriarch  who  preceded  Nikon,  had  anathematised 
those  who  sabbatised^  and  blasphemously  invoked  in  favour  of 
doing  so  the  authority  of  St.  Peter.     This  Sabbatarian  precept 

*  The  Sabbatarians  still  exist  in  Russia  as  a  separate  sect. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  53 

of  the  Stoglav  Council  the  Raskol  themselves  set  aside,  so 
exposing  themselves  to  a  charge  of  inconsistency. 

Nikon's  adherents  in  1667  imputed  no  malice  to  the  Bishops 
who  formed  the  Stoglav  Coimcil  in  1551,  nothing  worse  than 
simplicity  and  ignorance,  as  if  Moscow  had  made  a  great 
stride  in  the  matter  of  enhghtenment  during  the  hundred 
years.  What  had  really  happened  in  the  interim  was  that  the 
Rulers  of  Moscow  had  got  into  touch  with  the  leading  Greek 
sees  in  the  epoch  of  their  deepest  decadence  and  darkest  igno- 
rance, with  the  result  that  a  certain  revival  of  Greek  learning 
was  observable  in  the  higher  ranks  of  the  Russian  clergy. 
Any  revision  of  Slav  rites  and  texts  could  under  such  conditions 
only  lead  to  ehmination  of  much  that  was  ancient  and  sincere. 

But  the  chief  significance  of  the  Stoglav  council  lay  in 
this : —  it  marked  the  triumph  of  a  tendency,  which  had  long 
been  at  work,  to  elevate  the  Russian  Church  from  being  a  mere 
see  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Constantinople  to  the  dignity  of 
an  independent  national  Church.  It  was  a  grave  shock  to  Rus- 
sian Christians  when  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  insisted 
that  the  metropohtan  Isidore,  lately  consecrated  by  him,  must 
attend  the  Council  of  Florence.  He  did  so,  but  on  returning 
to  Moscow  was  deposed.  The  fall  of  Constantinople  was 
regarded  in  Moscow  as  a  punishment  of  the  Greeks  for  their 
apostasy,  and  the  conviction  gained  ground  that,  old  and  new 
Rome  having  both  of  them  apostatised,  Moscow  was  the  third 
Rome  and  the  Tsar  the  only  orthodox  prince.  Russian  divines 
now  began  to  cast  about  for  an  apostoUc  origin  of  their  Church, 
and  the  legend  grew  up  that  St.  Andrew  had  founded  it. 
Nikon  accepted  this  mjd^h.' 

A  legend  was  also  started  that  the  rulers  of  Moscow  derived 
their  secular  authority  direct  from  Prus,  a  brother  of  the 
Emperor  Augustus.  With  the  triumph  of  the  centralized 
state  at  Moscow  over  the  appanages,  or  more  or  less  autonomous 

1  Similarly  the  Armenians,  when  they  began  to  quarrel  with  the  Greelcs  and 
wanted  their  Church  to  be  something  better  than  a  dependency  of  Caesarea  of 
Cappadocia,  invented  the  fable  that  Christ  had  descended  in  person  at  Valar- 
shapat  before  the  eyes  of  a  Cathohcos  —  who  was  really  a  Greek  missionary. 
Simultaneously  they  appropriated  to  themselves  the  Syriac  legend  of  King  Abgar 
and  Addai. 


54  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

local  Slavonic  provinces,  it  was  also  felt  to  be  necessary  to 
assemble  in  the  capital  the  local  cults  of  saints  dispersed  all 
over  Russia  in  almost  every  town  and  village.  It  was  Uke  the 
ancient  Roman  adoption  of  the  gods  of  Veii,  which  were  dragged 
with  due  pomp  from  their  own  city  to  Rome.  The  famous 
ikon  of  the  Saviour  reverenced  at  Novgorod  was  now  removed 
to  Moscow,  as  were  countless  rehcs  and  miraculous  pictures 
from  other  places.  By  order  of  Ivan  the  terrible,  a  search  for 
local  saints  and  legends  began  in  1547;  and  40  were  promptly 
discovered,  whose  miracles  entitled  them  to  a  place  in  the 
new  national  pantheon.  Macarius  the  metropoUtan  was 
charged  to  compile  an  all-Russian  hagiology,  and  thenceforth 
the  Russian  Church  could  not  be  accused  of  lacking  saints  and 
miracle-workers. 

The  'position  of  affairs  in  1655 

We  are  now  at  the  year  1655,  and  twelve  years  are  to  pass 
before  the  Council  of  1667  consmnmates  the  schism  already 
begun  in  the  bosom  of  Russian  Christianity.  During  those 
years  no  effort  was  spared  to  bring  Moscow  into  closer  associa- 
tion with  Greek  centres  of  piety,  to  assimilate  old  Slav  rites 
to  such  Greek  models  as  were  obtainable.  Russian  prelates 
could  not  but  reverence  the  Greek  Church  as  the  parent  of  their 
own  rehgion,  and  their  first  patriarch  Job  had  been  conse- 
crated by  Jeremiah  of  Constantinople,  as  Philaret  by  Theo- 
phanes  of  Jerusalem.  It  was  after  all  a  slender  minority  that 
raised  among  themselves  doubts  as  to  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
Greeks,  and  Stefan  Bonifatsi,  Nikon's  rival  for  the  patri- 
archate, expressly  bore  witness  thereto  in  his  Book  on  the  Faith, 
printed  in  Moscow  in  1649, —  a  work  much  appealed  to  at  a 
later  date  by  the  Raskol  on  account  of  the  chronology  it 
afforded  them  of  Antichrist's  reign  on  earth.  Nevertheless, 
as  Ivanovski  candidly  recognizes,  there  was  always  a  school  of 
thinkers  in  his  country  that  distrusted  the  Greeks.  The  early 
chronicler  of  Kiev,  Nestor,  wrote  that  they  were  ever  deceivers, 
and  the  natural  antipathy  of  a  virile  race  for  the  debased 
Levantine  was  intensified  by  the  open  apostasy  to  Rome  of 
the  Greek  Emperor,  John  Palaeologus  and  his  higher  clergy 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  55 

at  the  Council  of  Florence  in  1439,  when  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Patriarch  Ignatius  even  Isidore,  the  Greek  Metropolitan 
of  Moscow,  became  a  backslider,  to  the  horror  of  Prince  VasiU 
and  his  subjects.  The  result  was  that  Russian  Christians 
then  formed  the  conviction  that  no  orthodoxy  survived  in  the 
entire  world  outside  their  own  pale,  and  the  fall  of  Constanti- 
nople was  regarded  as  a  judgment  upon  backshders.  As  for 
the  Western  Church  the  Russians  consistently  regarded  it  as 
the  vilest  of  heresies,  and  have  never  ceased  to  empty  the  vials 
of  their  wrath  and  scorn  upon  the  Poles,  because,  being  Slavs, 
they  are  filled  with  the  spirit  of  apostasy.  The  recent  war,  as 
regards  Russia  and  Austria,  was,  from  one  point  of  view,  an 
episode  in  the  age-long  struggle  of  Byzantium  and  Rome.  It 
reproduced  once  more  the  quarrel  of  the  Patriarch  Photius 
and  the  Pope  of  Rome  for  jurisdiction  over  Bulgaria  just  over 
a  thousand  years  ago. 

Abominating  the  West  and  suspicious  of  the  East,  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  the  Orthodox  Church  has  ever  suffered  from 
intellectual  anaemia  and  chosen  for  its  motto:  ''no  learning, 
no  heresy."  Nikon's  patronage  therefore  of  Greek  learning 
only  served  to  rouse  distrust  of  his  new  methods  and  placed 
a  fresh  weapon  in  the  hands  of  those  whom  his  autocratic 
violence  had  already  aUenated.  His  associations  with  Kiev 
and  the  doctors  of  South  Western  Russia  did  not  in  any  way 
weaken  these  prejudices,  for  Kiev  during  the  XVIth  and 
XVIIth  Centuries  was  little  more  than  a  centre  of  Latin  culture; 
amid  the  Little  Russians  there  had  been  a  movement  in  the 
XVIth  Century  for  union  with  Rome;  and  not  only  in  Eastern 
GaUcia,  but  also  in  the  Polish  province  of  Cholm  (or  Holm), 
there  are  still  found  millions  of  Ruthenes  or  Little  Russians, 
who  were  educated  by  those  greatest  of  teachers,  the  Jesuits, 
three  centuries  ago,  still  retaining  the  Cyrillic  Slav  rites,  but 
recognizing  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome. 

It  deepened  popular  suspicions  against  the  "Correctors," 
that  they  allowed  to  be  printed  in  Moscow  various  books  of 
doubtful  orthodoxy  written  by  divines  of  these  outlying  and 
more  or  less  Latinized  Slav  churches.  Such  was  the  "Cate- 
chism" of  Laurence  Zizania  (an  ominous  name)  of  Korets, 


56  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

now  in  the  Volynski  or  Volhynia  Government.  Zizania  wrote 
in  Lithuanian  about  1600  and  was  a  teacher  at  Lvov,  or  Lem- 
berg,  in  doctrine  opposed  to  the  Uniats.  Nevertheless,  as  we 
might  expect  in  a  book  written  in  a  city  so  deeply  influenced  by 
Jesuit  learning,  his  Catechism  was  tainted  with  Latin  heresies 
and  even  inculcated  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory.  The  Boyar 
Rtishchev  incurred  censiu-e  because  in  his  school  near  Moscow 
he  admitted  teachers  from  Kiev;  and  in  1650  three  conserva- 
tive Russian  divines,  Ivan  Vasilev  Zasetski,  Luke  Timothy 
Golosov,  and  Constantine  Ivanov,  clerk  of  the  Blagovesh- 
chenski  or  Annunciation  church  met  at  the  monk  Saul's  lodg- 
ings in  order  to  formulate  their  indictment  against  an  institu- 
tion in  which  Greek  and  Western  Slav  learning  was  held  in 
esteem. 

In  the  Spring  of  1655  Nikon  ^  availed  himself  of  the  presence 
in  Moscow  of  two  foreign  prelates,  Macarius  of  Antioch  and 
Gabriel  of  Servia,  to  convene  a  synod,  which  he  hoped  would 
support  him  in  his  emendations  of  the  Russian  Service  books, 
and  in  the  use  of  three  fingers  instead  of  two.  There  was  also  a 
dispute  as  to  the  right  ceremony  of  reconciUng  Latins,  which 
meant  Poles,  to  the  Orthodox  Communion;  some  holding  that 
they  should  be  rebaptized;  others,  merely  anointed.  Nikon 
here  shewed  better  sense  than  the  Greek  Church  did,  by  rang- 
ing himself  with  the  latter  party,  who  had  on  their  side  the 
weight  of  the  ancient  and  undivided  Church.  The  synod  met 
in  March  and  confirmed  the  decisions  arrived  at  by  the  Council 
of  the  year  before.  It  also  gave  its  formal  approval  to  a  new 
edition  of  the  Sluzhehnik  or  missal  which  was  printed  and  dis- 
tributed towards  the  close  of  the  year  to  all  the  churches  in 
Russia;  it  was  the  first  of  the  corrected  books  to  be  thus  dis- 
tributed *'by  authority." 

Nikon,  in  spite  of  his  dictatorial  instincts,  was  consistently 
anxious  to  present  his  reforms  as  an  expression  of  the  mind  of 
the  entire  Orthodox  Church  and  not  of  the  Russian  hierarchy 
alone.  For  this  reason  in  1655-56  he  had  printed  and  distrib- 
uted a  collection  of  writings,  called  Skrizhal,  relative  to  the  crisis, 
penned  in  1653  by  Paisius  of  Jerusalem,  which  |Arsenius  had 
*  Macarius  Hist.  vol.  11. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  67 

rendered  into  Russian.  The  Synod  of  April  1656  ratified  its 
contents.  Skrizhal  was  the  Russian  equivalent  for  the  tables  of 
the  Mosaic  commandments  or  a  bishop's  pectoral.  The  book 
contained  a  commentary  on  the  Uturgy  and  other  priestly  rites, 
with  the  Byzantine  prelate's  letter  on  the  use  of  the  two 
fingers  and  the  credo.  In  a  later  edition  were  included  Nikon's 
address  to  the  Synod  of  1656  and  other  controversial  tracts. 
In  that  year  Nikon  thought  the  time  was  at  last  come  for 
putting  an  end  to  the  differences  which  prevailed  in  the  rites 
and  books  used  in  the  churches  all  over  Russia,  and  he  resolved 
to  call  in  en  masse,  in  order  to  bring  about  their  destruction, 
all  the  discordant  texts,  and  to  issue  instead  to  all  parishes  his 
authorized  versions.  He  was  wilUng  to  brave  the  chorus  of 
disapproval  sure  to  be  roused  by  the  wholesale  condemnation 
of  books  printed  by  his  predecessors  as  well  as  of  MSS.  which 
had  been  for  centuries  the  object  of  almost  superstitious 
reverence  and  had  been  from  the  beginning  in  the  hands  of 
Russian  saints  and  workers  of  miracles;  for  he  had  secured  in 
advance  the  approval  of  Macarius,  Patriarch  of  Antioch,  of 
Gabriel  of  Serbia,  of  Gregory  of  Nicea  and  of  Gedeon  of  Mol- 
davia, who  were  all  staying  in  Moscow  and  present  at  his 
Synod  in  1656.  The  Synod  met  on  February  12,  the  day  of 
St.  Meletius,  and  began  with  the  perusal  of  an  apocryphal  life 
of  the  Saint,  in  which  it  was  related  how,  when  engaged  in  a 
controversy  with  the  Arians,  he  had  drawn  sparks  of  fire  from 
heaven  by  joining  two  fingers  together  and  then  adding  a  third 
in  crossing  himself.-^  Next  Macarius  was  formally  asked  to 
interpret  the  legend,  and  answered  that  it  signified  the  usage  on 
which  Nikon  had  set  his  heart;  whereupon  the  Synod  ratified 
it  as  an  act  symbohc  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  The  members  of 
the  Council  then  proceeded  to  the  Uspenski  church  to  hear 
mass  which  was  performed  by  the  prelate  Macarius,  Gabriel 

1  The  usage  condemned  was  that  of  extending  the  index  and  middle  finger, 
while  crouching  the  fourth  and  fifth  over  the  thumb  in  the  palm  of  the  hand. 
The  extended  middle  finger  was  slightly  bent.  The  explanation  now  given  of 
this  usage  by  Greek  monks  is  that  the  first  two  fingers  represent  IC,  the  other 
two  and  the  thumb  XC,  i.  e.  the  customary  Greek  abbreviations  for  '  Jesus 
Christ.'  Nikon  substituted  the  rule  to  make  the  sign  on  the  forehead  with  the 
first  three  fingers  of  the  right  hand. 


58  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  Gregory,  Metropolitan  of  Nicea;  and  solemnly  standing 
before  the  Tsar  who  was  present,  these  three  anathematized 
the  use  of  two  fingers  as  an  Armenian  heresy  approved  by 
Theodoret,  the  Nestorian,  all  present  joining  in  their  anathema. 
But  this  somewhat  mechanical  unanimity  did  not  yet  satisfy 
Nikon,  so  he  summoned  yet  another  Council  in  the  following 
April  (25th),  at  which  he  adduced  the  authority  of  Athanasius 
and  Paisius,  the  Patriarchs  of  Constantinople  and  Jerusalem 
for  the  change;  once  more  the  use  of  two  fingers  was  anathema- 
tized, this  time  as  an  innovation  (!)  and  as  savouring  of  the 
Arian  and  Nestorian  heresies. 

The  rebaptism  of  Latins  was  also  condenmed,  and  more 
wisely,  and  six  Poles  were  marched  in  ad  hoc  and  reconciled 
to  the  Church  merely  by  unction  with  the  Muron  or  holy  chrism 
mixed  by  Nikon  on  the  Great  Thursday.  Some  of  the  Russian 
clergy  present  were  nevertheless  scandaUzed  at  such  facihty 
of  conversion  being  granted  to  Latin  heretics;  but  in  the  end 
they  yielded  to  the  arguments  of  Macarius  who  adduced  pre- 
cepts in  favour  thereof  from  the  nomocanons  or  books  of  eccles- 
iastical law  and  discipline,  and  the  Tsar  cUnched  the  matter  by 
lending  the  weight  of  his  authority  to  a  recognition  of  the  orders 
and  baptism  of  the  Cathohc  and  Southern  Russian  Churches. 
The  decision,  we  may  remark,  was  nevertheless  in  direct  contra- 
vention of  the  earlier  rituals  (potrehnik)  issued  under  the 
Patriarchs  Joasaph  and  Joseph  and  of  the  rule  made  by  the 
great  Patriarch  Philaret;  for  these  authorities  laid  it  down  that 
not  only  Latins,  but  orthodox  White  Russians  as  well,  who  had 
received  baptism  by  sprinkling  only,  were  to  be  rebaptized. 

Orthodox  historians  naively  remark  that  these  ''reforms" 
roused  the  opposition  of  many  who  by  reason  of  the  excessive 
behef  in  mere  ritual  were  unable  to  distinguish  it  from  dogma, 
as  if  the  older  practices  had  not  been  anathematized  by  the 
subservient  Greek  patriarchs  mustered  in  Moscow  as  heretical, 
e.  g.  as  Armenian,  as  Arian,  as  Nestorian.  If  Paul  of  Kolomna 
could  not  distinguish  ceremony  from  behef,  neither  could 
Nikon  and  the  Tsar.  You  do  not  excommunicate  and  hurl 
anathemas  except  at  heretics,  still  less  whip  and  burn  aUve 
men  who  are  perfectly  orthodox,  and  only  err  by  being  simple- 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  '  59 

minded  and  conservative.  The  ''reforms"  outraged  not  a  few 
of  the  higher  clergy;  some  openly  mm-miired,  others  kept 
silence  from  fear  of  sharing  the  fate  of  Paul;  and  their  stiff- 
necked  obstinacy  and  restlessness,  as  Ivanovski  styles  their 
feelings  of  dissatisfaction,  rapidly  spread  beyond  the  clergy 
and  took  hold  of  the  masses  of  the  people,  who  could  not  be- 
lieve that  men  whom  they  so  deeply  venerated  were  misguided 
heretics. 

The  Fall  of  Nikon 

And  now  a  reaction  set  in  against  Nikon  and  all  his  works, 
provoked  by  his  headstrong  courses,  cruelty  and  violence. 
For  a  time  the  stars  seemed  to  fight  in  their  com'ses  against 
him.  As  is  usual  in  times  of  popular  excitement,  portents  were 
seen,  the  heavens  were  darkened  and  comets  sped  across  the 
void.  Dreams  and  visions  were  of  the  order  of  the  day.  The 
Almighty  himself  appeared  demanding  that  the  printing  presses 
should  be  suspended  from  their  impious  work  and  destroyed. 
The  Virgin  and  St.  Paraskeve  joined  in  his  expostulations. 
Not  only  the  inferior  clergy  were  outraged;  their  indignation 
spread  to  the  Boyars  or  great  proprietors  above  and  to  the 
peasants  below;  it  even  penetrated  the  Palace  of  the  Tsar. 
Plague  and  war  were  endemic  then  as  now  in  the  land,  and 
served  to  enhance  the  general  discontent.  In  August  1656 
the  mob  broke  into  the  Uspenski  Church  and  assailed  Nikon 
with  the  accusation  of  having  set  a  heretic,  Arsenius  Sukhanov, 
to  tamper  with  the  holy  books.  Overwhelmed  by  their  menaces 
Nikon  hastily  quitted  Moscow,  and  retired  to  the  Voskresenski 
mojiastery  of  New  Jerusalem  built  by  himself  in  1656  in 
imitation  of  the  Church  of  the  Anastasis. 

The  very  forwardness  of  Nikon  in  exiling  his  antagonists 
served  indirectly  to  diffuse  over  Russia  the  rumour  of  his  own 
impiety  and  apostasy.  He  had  had  Awakum  (Habbakuk) 
deported  to  Siberia,  but  he  had  forgotten  to  cut  out  his  tongue 
beforehand, —  a  precaution  he  took  with  many  of  his  antagon- 
ists. The  result  was  that  the  exile  spread  the  tidings,  as  he 
travelled,  of  the  profanation  of  the  old  religion.  In  scores  of 
villages  they  listened  to  his  seductive  preaching,  and  at  Tobolsk 


60  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

he  even  converted  to  his  views  the  Archbishop  Simeon.  Nero- 
nov,  we  saw,  had  been  incarcerated  at  Vologda  in  the  Simonov 
Spasso-kamenski  monastery,  but  the  conditions  of  seclusion 
in  that  day  were  not  so  rigorous  as  a  modern  State  knows  how 
to  impose.  Villagers  anxious  to  know  what  was  passing  in 
Moscow  flocked  round  him  and  eagerly  imbibed  his  teaching, 
for  men  are  everywhere  more  prone  to  believe  evil  than  good 
about  the  men  in  authority,  especially  in  Russia.  For  a  time 
it  looked  as  if  Nikon  might  share  the  fate  of  Maximus,  the  over- 
bold Greek  corrector  of  a  generation  earlier.  Even  in  modern 
England  it  is  easy  to  get  up  a  heresy  hunt.  How  easy  then 
must  it  not  have  been  in  XVIIth  Century  Russia.  Western 
Europe  was  in  those  far-off  days,  as  in  oiu*  own,  envisaged  by 
all  "true"  Russians  as  a  contaminated  region,  the  home  of 
Satan  and  of  every  Satanic  innovation.  Even  to-day  there 
are  innumerable  Old  believers  in  Russia  who  eschew  tobacco 
and  potatoes  on  the  ground  that  they  were  brought  in  from  the 
West  by  the  accursed  nemtsy,  i.  e.  Germans  and  Scandinavians. 
When  the  first  Duma  was  instituted  in  1905,  and  certain  hberals 
therein  ventured  to  ask  questions  about  how  the  money  of 
taxpayers  was  being  spent,  Russian  conservatives  denounced 
them  as  infected  with  the  "Western  Poison."  It  was  worse  in 
the  XVIIth  Century  to  be  accused  of  Latinizing  than  of  Judaiz- 
ing.  Nikon  accused  some  of  his  opponents  of  using  tobacco, 
but  that  was  barely  so  grave  as  the  charge  of  Latin  heresy  now 
spread  abroad  against  himself,  and  the  grand  Seigneur  or 
Boyar  Pleshcheev  reminded  Neronov  of  the  prophecy  con- 
tained in  the  Book  of  Faith  (see  above  p.  54)  of  schisms  and 
dissensions  in  the  Church;  that  book,  he  said,  was  full  of  warn- 
ings concerning  the  backsliding  of  the  West  and  the  apostasy 
of  the  Uniats  to  the  Western  Church.  Let  Nikon  beware  lest 
thereby  they  also  should  suffer.  Most  of  Nikon's  little 
improvements  in  ritual  were  set  down  to  his  Latin  heresy,  in 
particular  the  use  of  three  fingers  in  blessing,  the  impressing  on 
the  eucharistic  wafer  of  a  four-cornered  cross,  the  triple  Alle- 
luia, and  the  substitution  in  the  phrase  "offering  the  thrice 
holy  hymn"  (trisagion)  of  the  word  chanting  or  intoning  for 
offering.     For    the   word   substituted   among   the    Latinized 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  61 

Slavs  signified  accompaniment  by  the  organ  of  the  voice, 
and  of  the  organ  the  Eastern  Christians  had  the  same  horror 
as  John  Knox  of  the  "box  o'  whistles."  Nikon  was  freely 
hkened  to  the  Greek  apostates  Isidore  and  Ignatius,  and 
accused  of  truckling  to  the  Pope  of  Rome. 

Ivanovski  and  Macarius  set  before  us  a  graphic  account  of 
the  events  which  ensued  and  culminated  in  the  emergence  of 
the  Raskol  as  a  counter-Church  after  the  Councils  of  1666-7. 
In  1858  the  opposition  to  Nikon,  confined  five  years  before  to  a 
few  of  the  higher  ecclesiastics,  began  to  swell  into  a  popular 
movement  of  such  dimensions  as  to  engender  misgivings  in  the 
Tsar.  It  was  in  vain  that  Nikon  at  the  eleventh  hour  was 
cowed  into  making  a  few  concessions;  for  example,  to  the 
clergy  of  the  Uspenski  Church  in  Moscow  permission  was  given 
to  use  as  they  liked  either  the  old  or  the  new  Service  books. 
This  was  because  Neronov,  who  had  now  been  shorn  as  a 
monk  and  taken  the  name  of  Gregory  in  religion,  had  from  fear 
of  schism  relaxed  his  opposition  to  Nikon's  revision  of  the 
church  books.  Nikon  had  many  enemies  in  the  hierarchy  itself, 
in  especial  Pitirim  of  Krutits.  Not  a  few  ladies  of  the  court 
and  relatives  of  the  Tsar  were  inflamed  against  Nikon  by  Awa- 
cum's  denunciations.  Boyars  or  nobles  whom  he  had  treated 
with  such  rigour,  when  in  the  Tsar's  absence  he  was  entrusted 
with  the  administration  of  the  realm,  now  saw  their  oppor- 
tunity to  retahate.  They  cast  all  their  influence  with  the  Tsar 
against  Nikon,  who  in  1658  suddenly  found  himself  fallen 
from  the  royal  favour. 

On  July  6th  of  that  year  Teimuraz,  the  prince  of  the  neigh- 
bouring little  kingdom  of  Georgia,  whose  capital  was  at  Tiflis, 
visited  Moscow.  He  was  a  Christian  and  orthodox,  for  early 
in  the  Vllth  Century  his  ancestors  had  abandoned  their  com- 
munion with  the  monophysite  church  of  Armenia  and  gone  over 
to  the  Byzantines.  In  an  age  when  few  independent  Christian 
states  survived  in  the  East,  the  warriors  of  Georgia  retained 
their  freedom;  it  was  natural  therefore  that  this  prince,  who 
bore  the  ancient  name  of  Teimuraz,  should  be  accorded  a  splen- 
did reception  in  the  Tsar's  capital.  On  such  an  occasion  the 
Patriarch  would  naturally  have  taken,  after  the  Tsar,  the  most 


62  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

prominent  part  in  the  ceremonies,  but  it  was  noticed  that  he 
was  absent.  He  had  not  been  invited,  and  his  emissary  on  his 
way  to  the  reception  was  assaulted  by  the  Tsar's  attendants 
and  told  to  get  out  of  the  way.  On  July  8th,  the  feast  of  the 
Kazan  ikon  of  the  Theotokos,  the  Tsar  in  turn  absented  him- 
self because  Nikon  was  celebrating.  On  the  10th  he  also  took 
no  notice  of  Nikon's  invitation  to  him  to  attend  the  Hours, 
and  he  sent  a  noble  to  inform  the  prelate  that  he  was  offended 
and  would  not  come  to  hear  him  repeat  the  liturgj^ 

Nikon  was  not  the  man  to  admit  himself  in  the  wrong  or  to 
take  the  first  step  in  reconciliation  with  his  prince.  He  quitted 
the  church  on  foot  leaning  on  a  common  crutch,  and  turned 
his  steps  to  Ilinka,  where  lay  the  hostel  of  the  Resurrection 
Monastery.  There  he  halted  three  days  and  then  quitted 
Moscow  for  good,  declining  any  more  to  occupy  himself  with 
the  business  of  the  patriarchate.  His  quarrel  with  the  Tsar, 
according  to  Ivanovski,  was  due  to  nothing  in  particular. 
They  no  longer  sympathized;  the  nobles  had  stirred  the  Tsar's 
distrust,  and  the  latter  looked  askance  on  Nikon  as  one  who 
had  pressed  him  to  undertake  the  unsuccessful  war  with 
Sweden  from  which  he  had  lately  returned.  The  chief  reason 
was  that  Nikon  interfered  in  the  administration.  There  was 
no  room  for  two  heads  of  the  State. 

From  the  Fall  of  Nikon  to  the  Council  of  1666 

A  time  of  chaos  followed  the  departure  of  Nikon.  The 
affairs  of  the  Church  were  entrusted  to  his  enemy  Pitirim,  the 
Metropolitan  of  Krutits,  the  nobles  had  succeeded  in  thor- 
oughly poisoning  the  mind  of  their  Sovereign  against  him,  and 
even  incited  the  people  to  protest  openly  against  his  reforms. 
The  Raskolniki  now  began  to  shew  themselves  in  public,  and 
Awakum  after  many  years  exile  in  Siberia  was  recalled  and 
given  a  position  in  the  Kremlin.  The  Tsar  patronized  him 
afresh  and  went  out  of  his  way  to  ask  his  blessing.  There  was 
even  talk  of  his  being  made  the  Tsar's  chaplain.  The  renewal 
of  Court  favour,  however,  did  not  abate  Avvakum's  Raskol 
enthusiasm.    He  undertook  to  debate  with  Theodore  Rtish- 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  63 

chev  the  subject  of  Nikon's  reforms,  and  these  discussions 
degenerated  into  noisy  scenes. 

About  the  same  time  the  monk  Gregory  Neronov  returned 
from  his  place  of  confinement.  Haunted  with  the  fear  of  a 
schism  between  the  Russian  and  the  Eastern  Churches,  he 
had,  as  remarked  above,  left  the  ranks  of  the  Raskol;  but  he 
continued  to  agitate  against  the  correction  of  the  Service  books, 
and  addressed  petitions  to  the  Tsar  stigmatizing  Nikon  as  a 
son  of  perdition  and  demanding  his  condemnation  by  a  Coun- 
cil. In  this  agitation  he  was  joined  by  several  notables  who 
till  now  had  maintained  a  guarded  silence.  Among  these  were 
Spiridion  Potemkin  of  the  Pokrovsky  Monastery,  an  uncle 
of  Theodor  Rtishtchev,  and  Theodor  Trofimov,  deacon  of 
the  Church  of  the  Annunciation,  Dositheus  and  Cornelius. 
Dositheus  later  on  headed  the  Raskol  among  the  Don 
Cossacks  of  Olonets.  Nicetas,  a  pope  in  Suzdal,  and  Lazarus 
of  Romanova  also  repudiated  Nikon's  reforms. 

The  populace  of  Moscow  was  by  now  infected  with  enthusi- 
asm for  Awakum;  his  adherents  ran  along  the  streets  and 
stood  in  the  pubhc  places  proclaiming  "the  grace  of  the  old 
piety."  Street  fanatics  pursued  the  Tsar's  equipage,  appeal- 
ing to  him  to  restore  the  ancient  rehgion.  In  the  provinces 
equally  agitation  raged  against  Nikon  and  petitions  from  the 
clergy  and  bishops  poured  in  to  the  Tsar,  denouncing  the  book 
Skrizhal  which  Nikon  had  disseminated  in  defence  of  his  policy. 
Raskol  and  Boyars  joined  in  demanding  the  expulsion  of  Nikon 
from  the  patriarchate.  Even  members  of  the  royal  family 
joined  in  the  outcry,  for  example  Theodosia  Morozov,  one  of 
Awakum's  penitents  and  widow  of  GUeb  Ivan  Morozov,  with 
her  sister  the  Boyarina  Eudokia  Urusov.  They  even  went  to 
the  length  of  repudiating  Nikon's  baptism.  They  died  in 
1675  after  being  scourged,  racked  and  imprisoned  in  under- 
ground cells  at  Borovsk  in  the  Kaluga  Government,  their 
martyrdom  aiding  the  spread  of  the  Raskol. 

It  is  not  wonderful  if  the  clergy  in  many  places  resumed  the 
old  books  and  modes  of  singing;  and  if  the  authorities  had  been 
capable  of  good  sense  and  moderation,  they  would  have 
accepted  the  warning.    The  spkitual  temperature  was  indeed 


64  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

rising,  and  as  has  happened  again  and  again  in  times  of  stress, 
fanatics  began  to  read  the  signs  of  the  time  in  that  fertile 
storehouse  of  reUgious  dementia,  the  Apocalypse. 

When  the  year  1000  of  the  Christian  epoch  arrived  it  was 
generally  supposed  that  the  reign  of  Antichrist  was  at  hand  and 
preluded  the  end  of  the  world.  It  had  passed  away  however, 
without  much  harm,  and  now  the  year  1666  was  at  hand,  a 
date  which  the  Raskol  teachers  connected  with  the  number  of 
the  Beast,  which,  as  everyone  knows,  was  666.  The  Book  of 
Faith,  widely  current,  as  we  have  seen,  in  Russian  rehgious 
circles,  prophesied  that  this  mystical  date  would  witness  a 
grand  apostasy  from  the  faith  and  the  advent  of  the  precursor 
of  the  Man  of  Sin  or  Antichrist,  if  not  of  that  personage  him- 
self. Men's  minds  were  stuffed  with  such  speculations,  and  a 
seer  from  the  Volga,  a  compatriot  of  Nikon,  appeared  on  the 
scene  with  stories  of  his  visions.  He  had  passed  a  night  in  the 
company  of  Nikon  and  had  witnessed  a  number  of  demons 
install  him  on  a  throne,  crown  him  as  if  he  were  a  king,  pros- 
trate themselves  before  him  and  cry:  "Of  a  truth  thou  art  our 
beloved  brother,"  and  so  forth.  Another  fanatical  monk, 
named  Simeon,  had  his  vision  also  of  a  huge  serpent  coiling 
his  scaly  folds  around  the  palace  of  the  Tsar  and  whispering 
into  the  latter's  ear  the  blasphemies  of  the  contaminated  service 
books.  Needless  to  say,  the  serpent  was  Nikon.  The  Tsar 
himself  wrote  despairingly  to  Nectarius,  the  patriarch  of 
Jerusalem:  "In  our  entire  Church  rites  there  lacks  all  uni- 
foimity,  everyone  in  the  churches  follows  what  order  he 
chooses."  A  Tsar  of  that  age  could  not  perhaps  be  expected 
to  realize  what  is  even  among  ourselves  on  the  threshold  of  the 
XXth  Century  so  little  understood  or  desired  that  in  rehgion 
the  important  thing  is  not  conformity  but  conomunion. 

And  now  the  pendulum  began  to  swing  once  more  the  other 
way,^  for  those  who  had  brought  back  Awakum  and  their 
partisans  from  the  obscurity  of  their  places  of  exile  or  of  hiding, 
began  to  tremble  at  the  wild  success  of  their  propaganda,  which 
seemed  to  strike  at  the  roots  of  all  authority  in  ecclesiastical 

1  Acts  of  the  Moscow  Councils  of  1666-7,  Moscow,  1881,  with  introduction 
by  Prof.  Subbotin:  Macarius  Hist.,  t.  12,  p.  640  foil. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  65 

and  even  in  political  matters.  Hatred  of  Nikon  had  tempo- 
rarily won  for  the  Raskol  teachers  the  support  of  the  Boyars, 
but  this  aUiance  now  began  to  crumble.  The  Tsar  was  per- 
suaded in  1664  once  more  to  relegate  Awakum  to  exile,  and 
sent  him  this  time  to  Mezen  near  Archangel.  In  those  days 
travel  was  slow,  and  prisoners  less  circumscribed  in  their 
activities  than  to-day.  It  amounted  in  effect  to  a  missionary 
tour;  the  following  year  Awakum  started  back  to  attend  the 
Council  of  1666.  On  his  way  to  and  from  Archangel  he  had 
spread  his  tenets  right  and  left. 

The  Council  of  1666 

The  Council  of  1666  was  ostensibly  summoned  by  Imperial 
decree  to  pass  sentence  on  the  fallen  Nikon,  still  the  victim 
of  the  Tsar's  displeasure  and  doubtless  unpopular  with  many 
powerful  people.  In  the  first  session,  after  the  credo  had  been 
duly  recited  by  all  the  members,  three  leading  questions  were 
put  to  each  and  all:  "  Do  you  accept  the  four  Greek  Patriarchs 
as  orthodox?  Do  you  accept  as  such  their  printed  books  and 
MSS.?  Do  you  accept  the  findings  of  the  Council  of  1654?  " 
These  questions  only  bore  indirectly  on  Nikon  and  removed 
the  question  of  his  personal  actions  from  purview.  The 
Council  could  condemn  him,  yet  accept  his  handiwork,  the 
corrected  books,  the  three  fingers  and  the  rest.  They  did  both. 
The  result  of  the  manoeuvre  was  what  might  be  expected. 
All  present  answered  the  questions  in  the  affirmative  and  gave 
their  signatures  in  that  sense.  The  next  session  was  held 
under  the  presidency  of  the  Tsar  himself,  in  his  Stolovaya  or 
banqueting  hall,  his  privy  council  assisting.  The  Tsar  took 
up  his  parable  against  the  Raskol  propaganda,  declaring  it  to 
be  directed  against  the  Church  and  its  sacraments.  He 
recited  the  symbol  from  the  Chrysobull  of  1593,  in  the  eighth 
clause  of  which,  as  we  saw,  the  one  epithet  Kyrion  was  used  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  As  he  was  certainly  unacquainted  with 
Greek,  this  was  for  a  Tsar  of  that  age  a  very  impressive  feat. 
Pitirim,  formerly  MetropoUtan  of  Novgorod,  who  had  taken 
charge  of  the  affairs  of  the  Church  when  Nikon  was  disgraced, 
tendered  in  the  name  thereof  its  thanks  to  the  Monarch  for 


66  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

his  defence  of  orthodoxy,  which  the  Raskol  had  never  in  any 
way  assailed.  All  who  were  present,  Pitirim  affirmed,  unfeign- 
edly  accepted  the  said  symbol. 

In  the  third  session  the  Raskol  teachers  were  called  up  for 
judgment  singly  or  in  batches.  They  were  invited  to  accept 
the  corrected  books  and  to  repent,  the  charge  preferred  against 
them  being,  not  that  they  adhered  to  the  pre-Nikonian  texts 
and  rites,  but  that  they  condemned  the  new  ones,  that  they 
decried  the  authority  of  the  Eastern  patriarchs,  calumniated 
Nikon  and  falsely  accused  the  Muscovite  clergy  of  denying 
the  dogmas  of  the  Incarnation  and  Resurrection.  Some  of 
the  accused  remained  impenitent,  led  by  Awakum  and  Lazar; 
some  sincerely  abjured  the  supposed  errors,  as  Alexander, 
Bishop  of  Vyatka,  who  in  1663  had  protested  to  the  Tsar 
against  Nikon's  correction  of  the  creed  and  service  books. 
An  abjiu-ation  of  his  errors  was  also  forced  from  the  monk 
Gregory  Neronov;  others  abjiu-ed,  but,  as  the  event  proved,  in- 
sincerely, such  as  Nicetas  and  the  Deacon  Thedor  or  Theodore, 
who  eventually  had  his  tongue  cut  out.  The  obstinate  were 
excommunicated  and  sent  to  prison;  the  rest  were  hurried  off 
to  monasteries  to  undergo  discipUne  and  be  subjected  to  further 
examination.  The  synod  closed  its  dehberations  by  unani- 
mously condemning  the  new  sect  and  ordaining  that  all  incum- 
bents should  use  the  new  books. 

The  Raskol  leaders  were  confirmed  in  their  opposition  by  the 
knowledge  that  the  Greek  Ecclesiastics  brought  to  Moscow 
were  ignorant  of  the  issues  at  stake.  The  latter  could  not 
speak  Russian  and  were  tools  in  the  hands  of  Nikon  and  of 
the  court  party  who  alternately  cajoled  and  overawed,  bribed 
and  menaced  them.  They  countersigned  Nikon's  edicts,  but 
did  not  in  the  least  understand  them.  The  Raskol  leaders  had 
on  their  side  a  learned  Greek,  named  Dionysius,  a  monk  from 
Athos,  who  had  lived  in  Moscow  for  ten  years  before  the 
patriarchs  arrived  and  was  famihar  with  the  ins  and  outs  of 
the  quarrel,  for  he  knew  the  Russian  language  and  Hturgies 
thoroughly  well.  A  letter  of  his  survives,  written  in  1667,  in 
which  he  accuses  them  of  being  deceived,  of  knowing  nothing 
of  what  was  going  on,  of  believing  whatever  they^were  told. 
'  If,"  he  writes,  "you  would  exercise  your  own  judgment,  avoid 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  67 

honours  and  gifts  from  princes  and  ecclesiastical  authorities. 
But  if  you  do,  I  warn  you  that  you  will  share  the  fate  of 
Maximus.  They  will  intern  you  in  a  monastery,  and  you  will 
never  see  your  homes  again." 

Never  was  a  great  schism  forced  on  a  great  Church  upon  a 
flimsier  pretext,  and  the  feverish  anxiety  of  the  triumphant 
faction  to  obtain  the  approval  of  foreign  prelates  for  their 
innovations  shewed  plainly  that  in  their  hearts  they  felt  many 
misgivings.  This  was  why  a  few  months  later,  in  November 
1667,  the  retiu'n  to  Moscow  of  Paisius  of  Alexandria  and  of 
Macarius  of  Antioch  after  a  lapse  of  eleven  years  was  made  the 
occasion  of  a  fresh  meeting,  this  time  to  deal  expressly  with 
Nikon.  The  other  Eastern  prelates  who  had  attended  the  last 
council  were  present  along  with  sundry  of  the  Greek  clergy. 
Nikon  was  condemned  —  Ivanovski  does  not  seem  to  know 
what  for,  but  really  of  course  because  in  an  autocracy  there 
is  no  room  for  two  supreme  authorities  —  and  exiled  to  the 
Therapontov  cloister;  none  the  less  the  Synod  approved  of  his 
revision  of  the  Church  books,  as  also  of  the  book  Skrizhal 
which  as  we  saw  above,  was  a  stumbling-block  in  the  path  of 
old-fashioned  Churchmen.  The  condemnations  of  1666  were 
reaffirmed  and  those  who  resisted  were  anathematized,  on  the 
ground  that,  in  adhering  to  the  old  order,  they  thwarted  ecclesi- 
astical authority  and  calumniated  the  orthodox  eastern  church 
as  an  heretical  body.  The  excormnunications  pronounced 
against  the  dissidents  were  superfluous,  for  most  of  them  had 
already  withdrawn  from  communion  with  the  Chiu-ch.  Three 
Patriarchs,  fourteen  metropolitans  and  eight  archbishops,  and 
others,  in  all  76  ecclesiastics  signed  the  acts  of  this  Synod  which 
were  then  laid  up  for  a  perpetual  record  in  the  cathedral  of 
Moscow. 

But  the  decisions  of  the  Stoglav  council  a  centm-y  before  had 
also  to  be  got  out  of  the  way.  It  had  solemnly  anathematized 
the  practices  now  declared  to  be  orthodox.  Accordingly  its 
anathemas  were  as  solemnly  revoked  as  they  had  been  pro- 
nounced, and  the  doctors  who  had  attended  it  declared  to  have 
been  the  dupes  of  dreams  and  forgeries.  Thus  began  that 
famous  Raskol  movement  which  still  divides  Russians,  yet 


68  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

has  undoubtedly  contributed  much  to  the  social,  moral  and 
intellectual  progress  of  the  people  and  is  destined,  we  may  hope, 
to  contribute  yet  more  in  the  future. 

K.  Waliszewski,  the  historian  of  the  first  Romanovs,  in  his 
work  (Paris  1909)  entitled  Le  Berceau  d'une  dynastie,  insists 
hardly  less  than  Kostomarov  and  Miliukov  on  the  fact  that  the 
events  of  1667  laid  the  foundations  of  hberty  and  revolution  in 
Russia.    In  respect  of  its  originating  causes  and  conceptions 
the  schism,  he  freely  admits  (p.  416),  "wore  the  air  of  a  petrified 
fragment  of  old  Moscovy.    And  yet  its  heart  beat  with  an 
intense  life,  and  it  shewed  itself  capable  of  such  a  power  of 
resistance  and  propaganda,  of  such  a  capacity  for  independent 
development,  as  two  centuries  of  persecution  could  not  master 
or  subdue.     It  was  to  endure  and  grow,  and  in  doing  so  itself 
to  unfold  new  phases  in  spite  of  the  immobiUty  which  its 
initial  principle  seemed  to  impose  on  it.    It  was  to  diversify 
itself  in  an  infinity  of  ways;  robust  organisms  were  to  spring 
up  in  its  bosom  and  seek  to  bring  about  manifold  phases  of 
existence  in  harmony  with  all  sorts  of  creeds.    A  day  was 
also  to  come  when  revolutionaries,  freed  from  all  confessional 
interests,  and  also  reactionaries,  no  less  indifferent  to  dogmatic 
controversies,  will  contend  for  this  problematic  ally,  the  one 
party  hailing  him  as  an  instrument  of  their  sociaUstic  and  even 
anti-reUgious  agitation,  the  other  as  an  element  of  poUtical  and 
social  regeneration . . .     The  Lazars  and  Awakums  vowed  the 
society  of  their  time  to  eternal  fixity,  and  yet  none  the  less  and 
all  unconsciously  implanted  therein  principles  that  utterly 
contradicted   their   postulate.     Stationary   or   retrograde   in 
regard  to  the  intellectual  movement  of  their  country  along  the 
paths  of  civilization,  they  nevertheless  were  sharers  in  that 
progress  and  added  to  the  awakening  of  thought  the  awakening 
of  conscience.    The  subjection  of   the  Church  to  the  State 
was  only  rendered  possible  by  the  general  indifference  of  those 
concerned.    By  attracting  to  itself    such  behevers  as  were 
more  jealous  than  the  rest  of  the  Uberties  thus  set  at  nought, 
the  Raskol  faciUtated  that  pohcy;    but  at  the  same  time  it 
furnished  the  spirit  of  independence  with  an  asylum  of  refuge 
of  a  kind  to  keep  it  alive  and  develop  its  energy." 


APPENDIX  TO   CHAPTER   I 

p.  AURELIO  PALMIERFS  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  RUSSIAN  CLERGY 

It  is  opportune,  in  illustration  of  Uzov's  contentions,  to  add 
here  the  strictures  on  the  status  of  the  Russian  country  clergy 
in  La  Chiesa  Russa  by  P.  AureHo  Palmieri,  0.  S.  A.  (Firenze, 
1908).     He  writes,  p.  164,  as  follows:  — 

*'Dobroklonsky,  an  esteemed  historian  of  the  Russian 
Church,  thus  speaks  (t.  ii,  p.  147)  of  the  defects  which  the 
inferior  clergy  contracted  from  the  very  beginning  of  Russian 
Christianity,  and  which  still  paralyze  its  mission:  The  chief 
defects  of  the  clergy  (in  the  17th  century)  were  the  multi- 
pUcity  of  its  members,  the  dependence  of  parish  priests,  their 
want  of  means,  their  intellectual  ignorance  and  moral  short- 
comings. Against  these  drawbacks  provisions  were  indeed 
made,  but  they  did  not  avail  to  eradicate  the  evils  and  neutra- 
hzed  them  only  for  a  short  time.  The  result  was  that  they 
became  inveterate." 

''This  author,"  continues  Palmieri,  "does  not  touch  upon 
one  of  the  principal  defects,  the  absence  of  abnegation  and  of 
apostohc  spirit  in  the  clergy,  a  direct  result  of  the  servility  to 
which  it  was  habituated  by  the  social  conditions  of  Russia  and 
the  draconian  laws  of  the  Government. 

"The  inferior  clergy  live  in  parishes  which  in  Russia  have 
undergone  the  strangest  vicissitudes,  and  have  been  reduced 
step  by  step  from  an  unUmited  autonomy  to  the  level  of  mere 
succursals,  branch  offices,  of  the  poHce  or  bureaus  of  the  State. 
The  Russian  inferior  clergy,  from  the  first  dawn  of  Russian 
Christianity,  appear  to  us  to  have  been  ah-eady  predestined 
to  servitude.  In  the  pre-Mongol  epoch  the  material  and 
moral  conditions  of  the  priesthood  were  so  low  that  it  was  not 
the  sons  of  boyars  or  of  merchants  or  of  well-to-do  famihes 
that  aspired  to  it,  but  only  persons  belonging  to  the  lowest 
social  strata,  who  regarded  it  as  a  rise  morally  or  an  employ- 
ment for  the  sake  of  making  both  ends  meet.     This  resulted, 

69 


70  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

as  Golubinsky,  the  historian  of  the  Russian  Church,  expresses 
it  (i,  p.  448),  in  a  priesthood  of  cossacks  and  proletarians.  . . . 

"The  ancient  Russian  Church  was  not  organized,  and  the 
choice  of  priests  belonged  more  to  the  faithful  than  to  the 
bishops.  In  the  Byzantine  Empire,  owing  to  the  large  num- 
ber of  dioceses,  there  was  more  famiharity  between  the  hier- 
archy and  lower  clergy.  Christian  Russia  in  contrast  possessed 
to  begin  with  a  very  limited  number  of  sees,  which  were  of 
great  territorial  extent.  There  were  no  schools  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  clergy,  and  the  bishop  was  not  in  a  position  to  grasp 
the  needs  of  the  new  forms  of  Christianity  growing  up  among 
the  Russian  pagans  who  were  embracing  it.  At  first  the 
monasteries  supplied  the  deficiency  of  pastors.  The  churches 
of  the  cloister  were  transformed  into  parish  churches,  and 
certain  monks  also  devoted  themselves  to  the  task  of  sacer- 
dotal ministry  in  the  cities. 

"The  Parish  churches  were,  to  begin  with,  founded  by 
Russian  princes  or  by  private  individuals  or  by  the  communi- 
ties themselves.  The  first  were  kept  up  at  the  expense  of  the 
princes,  the  second  belonged  exclusively  to  those  who  had 
built  them;  they  could  be  ahenated  or  let,  and  formed  part 
of  the  hereditary  patrimony.  This  gave  rise  to  abuses,  and 
Russian  councils,  especially  that  of  the  Hundred  Capita  (or 
Heads,  Stoglav),  sanctioned  measures  intended  to  put  an  end 
to  this  traffic  in  edifices  of  worship.  The  other  churches  were 
the  property  of  the  mirs  or  communities  which  erected  them 
in  cities  and  villages.  To  the  right  of  ownership  the  mir 
added  that  of  supervision,  particularly  in  respect  of  the  goods 
belonging  to  the  Church.  The  mir  chose  delegates  whom  it 
charged  to  look  after  the  economical  interests  of  the  parish, 
one  only  at  first,  later  on  two.  There  were  no  laws  relative 
to  the  parochial  clergy,  and  the  faithful  could  increase  or 
diminish  it  at  their  pleasure.  This  right  was  a  corollary  of 
the  material  conditions  of  the  clergy  in  that  age,  for  they 
derived  their  Uvelihood  from  the  community  or  mir  which 
sought  their  services. 

"The  priests  of  parishes  were  chosen  by  popular  suffrage. 
The  choice  made,  a  candidate  presented  himself  before  the 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  71 

bishop,  who  laid  hands  on  him,  and  ordained  him,  if  he  was 
not  a  priest :  or,  in  case  he  were  such  aheady,  he  blessed  him.^ 
The  bishop  had  no  right  to  refuse  a  candidate  so  proposed,  and, 
moreover,  the  ample  gratuity  which  he  received  for  the  ordi- 
nation of  any  priest  whatever  effectually  silenced  conscientious 
scruples,  if  he  felt  any.  As  years  rolled  by,  the  ease  with 
which  the  priesthood  was  acquired  and  the  hghtness  of  the 
work  required  by  the  ministry  produced  a  plethora  of  popes . . . 
It  was  enough  for  a  candidate  to  secure  a  few  votes  or  to 
adduce  two  witnesses  to  affirm  that  a  certain  parish  needed  a 
priest,  and  the  bishop  ignorant  of  the  real  facts,  ordained  the 
postulant.  So  the  caste  of  popes  assumed  the  aspect  of  a  set 
of  sweated  operatives.  The  priests  remained  under  the  thumb 
of  the  laity,  which  could  deny  them  the  means  of  livelihood 
and  expel  them  from  their  offices.  Among  the  many  com- 
petitors who  presented  themselves  for  the  posts  vacant  in 
parishes,  the  mir  chose  those  who  most  lowered  the  scale  of 
their  salary  and  of  their  tariff  for  ecclesiastical  functions. 
This  led,  as  a  Russian  bishop  deplored,  to  lazy  or  drunken 
priests  being  chosen  in  preference  to  priests  that  were  lettered 
or  led  good  lives. ^  The  nobility  contributed  to  the  decadence 
of  clerical  prestige.  In  fact  many  nobles  scrupled  not  to 
present  to  the  bishops,  as  candidates,  their  own  serfs  in  order 
to  secure  for  themselves  part  of  what  they  earned  as  priests .... 
He  continues  on  p.  168:  — 

"Notwithstanding,  the  progressive  decadence  of  the  autono- 
mous regime  of  parishes  and  of  the  free  choice  of  priests,  though 
it  led  to  so  many  evils,  is  deplored  nowadays  by  reformers  of 
the  Russian  Church,  as  an  element  in  the  dissolution  of  ortho- 
doxy. The  ancient  parish  was  considered  a  juridical  unit, 
legally  organized  and  in  poHtical  and  religious  aspects  enjoying 
autonomy.  The  bishops  had  not  the  right  to  make  what  rules 
they  liked  in  parishes,  and  if  occasionally  they  attempted  to, 
conflicts  arose  which  dragged  on  for  years.  The  mir  had  its 
starosta  or  head  who  together  with  the  parishioners  and  clergy 

^  Dobroklonsky,  iii,  p.  53. 

^  Znamensky  Uchebnoe  Rukovodstvo  po  Istorii  russkoi  Tserkvi,  144-5,  "School 
Handbook  on  the  History  of  the  Russian  Church." 


72  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

conducted  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  The  constitution  of 
parishes  was  in  consequence  lay  rather  than  ecclesiastic,  and 
it  is  exactly  this  lay  character  which  so  much  recommends  it 
to  apostles  of  a  laicization  of  the  church  of  such  a  kind  as  would 
assimilate  priests  to  municipal  counsellors  and  the  bishops  to 
parhamentary  deputies,  the  one  group  Uke  the  other  subject  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  their  electors. 

"In  the  18th  Century  the  autonomy  of  parishes,  opposed  by 
the  hierarchy  and  looked  askance  at  by  the  Government,  gradu- 
ally dechned,  and  its  diminution  contributed  to  the  enslavement 
of  the  peasants,  the  spread  of  the  Raskol  and  anaemia  of  rehgi- 
ous  sentiment.^  In  the  Ecclesiastical  Code  of  Peter  the  Great 
the  parish  is  still  regarded  as  a  juridical  personaUty,  a  legal 
association  invested  with  the  right  to  elect  its  own  priests  and 
those  who  served  in  the  Church,  and  to  agree  with  the  clergy 
on  terms  that  were  legitimate.  The  parishioners  also  retain 
the  right  to  nominate  the  starosty,  who  were  allowed  out  of  the 
collections  made  in  church  to  raise  hospices  for  beggars  and 
hospitals  or  asylums  for  foundlings . . .  Peter  the  Great  Hmited 
the  parochial  right  of  choice  by  requiring  that  only  men  should 
be  chosen  as  ministers  who  had  completed  their  studies  in 
diocesan  schools.  In  the  reign  of  Paul  I,  in  order  to  render 
the  parish  clergy  more  docile  instruments  of  Government,  the 
Synod,  in  accordance  with  an  imperial  ukase,  decided  that  the 
worthiest  and  best  instructed  candidates  should  be  given  prefer- 
ence over  those  who  enjoyed  the  confidence  and  goodwill  of  the 
people;  in  this  way  Government  candidates  won  a  preference 
over  parochial  ones.  At  last  an  ukase  of  July  24, 1797,  decreed 
the  abohtion  for  good  of  the  custom  of  electing  the  parish 
clergy,  and  also  annulled  the  permission  given  in  the  18th 
century  to  the  parish  to  present  to  the  bishop  for  acceptance 
and  confirmation  a  hst  of  candidates  enjoying  the  people's 
confidence.  Later  on  the  statute  of  ecclesiastical  consistories, 
promulgated  March  27,  1841,  cancelled  the  last  traces  of  paro- 
chial autonomy,  and  laid  it  down  that  sacerdotal  ordination  is 
a  right  which  belongs  immediately  and  exclusively  tojthe 
eparchial  or  episcopal  authority.  Thus  the  poUtical  slavery 
*  Papkov,  in  Revue  Internationale  de  TMologie,  1900,  t.  8,  p.  554. 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  73 

of  the  Church  entered  the  last  phase  of  its  evolution.  The 
lower  clergy,  withdrawn  from  the  free  choice  of  the  people, 
became  a  laughing-stock  in  the  hands  of  the  hierarchy,  and  the 
latter  in  its  turn,  transformed  into  one  of  the  many  cog-wheels 
of  the  State,  ceased  to  feel  any  solicitude  for  the  liberty  of  the 
Church,  and  took  its  orders  blindly  from  the  lay  bureaucracy 
of  the  Synod.  In  addition  the  parish  clergy  were  condemned 
to  truckle  to  a  hierarchy  they  cordially  hated  just  because, 
being  enrolled  in  the  monasteries,  it  was  dominated  by  ascetic 
ideals,  and  could  not  understand  the  wants  of  married  priests." 
He  continues  on  p.  174:  — 

''The  movement  of  reform  now  (1908)  afoot  in  Russia  aims 
at  the  resurrection  of  the  parish  as  the  chief  factor  in  a  renova- 
tion of  the  Church.  The  memorandum  of  Count  Serge  Witte 
on  the  present  situation  of  the  Orthodox  Church  published  in 
the  Slovo  of  March  28,  1905,  insists  before  all  things  on  the 
reorganization  of  the  primitive  Russian  ecclesiastical  communi- 
ties. The  ancient  parish,  so  his  memorandum  runs,  was  as  it 
were  the  channel  in  which  religious  life  flowed.  The  pernicious 
revolution  in  ecclesiastical  administration,  thought  out  and 
effected  by  Peter  the  Great,  paralyzed  its  energies.  In  the 
parishes  religious  and  social  Ufe  before  his  time  excelled  in 
intensity.  They  formed  juridical  entities,  autonomous  units. 
The  community  built  its  own  church,  chose  its  own  pastor  and 
parochial  ministrants.  The  parochial  budget  was  regarded 
as  of  considerable  importance,  and  out  of  the  resources  of  the 
members  of  the  community  were  maintained  the  church,  the 
manse,  the  school  and  works  of  charity.  The  parochial  balance 
also  took  the  place  of  an  agrarian  bank,  and  could  be  used  to 
aid  the  necessitous.  The  conmiunity  judged  its  members  and 
scrupled  not  even  to  penetrate  the  sanctuary  of  the  home  in 
order  to  restrain  it  from  moral  ruin.  And  yet  an  institution  so 
useful  for  the  development  of  rehgious  sentiment  and  social 
harmony  crumbled  to  nothing  after  the  reforms  of  Peter  the 
Great  were  adopted,  and  of  it  nothing  remained  but  the  name. 

''  What  causes  produced  the  fall  of  the  parish?  Witte  shows 
it  with  a  sincerity  rare  in  a  statesman,  and  therefore,  if  we 
quote  his  words,  we  run  no  risk  of  deserving  the  epithet  of 


74  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

systematic  detractors  of  the  Russian  Church.  The  aggrandise- 
ment in  the  18th  century  of  the  rights  of  the  nobility  over  the 
bondmen  of  the  glebe  suffocated  ever  more  and  more  the 
initiative  of  the  communities  which  had  lost  their  religious 
autonomy.  The  Government  pohcy  of  concentration,  pur- 
sued with  such  obstinate  ferocity  that  any  union  of  people 
which  took  the  name  of  a  fraternal  association  was  looked  upon 
as  a  revolutionary  or  secret  society,  dealt  pitiless  blows  at  the 
autonomous  organization  of  the  parishes.  More  than  that, 
the  reformer  of  Russia  looked  upon  the  Church  as  part  of  the 
complex  mechanism  of  the  State,  and  linked  with  its  holy 
duties  a  pohceman's  and  inquisitor's  tasks,  utterly  out  of  keep- 
ing with  the  dignity  of  its  character.  The  priest  was  charged 
to  draw  up  an  exact  list  of  those  who  paid  the  imposts  and  was 
obUged,  in  violation  of  the  secret  of  the  confessional,  to  draw 
up  a  report  of  poUtical  plots  or  offences.  With  the  change  of 
their  character  from  that  of  shepherds  of  souls  to  inspectors  of 
police,  the  clergy  forfeited  the  confidence  of  the  people,  and  the 
ties  which  united  them  with  it  were  snapt  for  good. 

"The  decadence  of  the  parish  brought  with  it  another  in- 
convenience. The  community  ceased  to  take  an  interest  in 
the  material  conditions  of  its  pastors,  and  the  latter  had  to 
provide  for  the  support  of  their  famihes  out  of  the  scanty 
glebe  the  State  allotted  to  the  parochial  clergy  and  out  of  the 
legal  contributions  of  the  villagers.  The  result  was  that  they 
fell  into  extreme  indigence,  and  often  the  Government  was 
obhged  to  assign  to  their  orphans  lands  intended  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  churches;  by  consequence  the  clergy  Uttle  by 
little  took  on  the  aspect  of  an  hereditary  caste  and  aUenated 
still  more  completely  the  sympathies  of  the  people. 

"For  the  resurrection  of  the  parish  it  is  needful  to  reestab- 
lish the  participation  of  the  parishioners  in  the  economic 
management  of  the  goods  of  the  parish  and  in  the  choice  of  the 
clergyman. 

"In  the  first  centuries  of  Christianity  not  only  priests,  but 
bishops  as  well  were  chosen  by  the  people,  with  the  result  that 
the  one  and  the  other  came  before  their  flocks  as  true  pastors, 
and  not  in  the  character  of  intruders  sent  to  govern  a  church 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  75 

by  way  of  an  act  of  grace  or  of  rigour  on  the  part  of  the  political 
authority.  In  the  case  of  the  bishops  the  day  seems  still  to 
be  far  off  when  their  nomination  will  be  made  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  people." 

With  these  views  of  Palmieri  may  be  compared  those  of 
Mihukov  in  his  Russian  Civilization,  1905,  pt.  1,  p.  149.  He 
allows  that  the  Raskol,  though  more  attached  to  the  letter  and 
form  of  rites,  yet  were  more  penetrated  than  the  masses  around 
them  by  their  inward  spirit,  and  anyhow  lived  their  religion. 
But  he  doubts  whether  it  was  so  much  a  protest,  as  the  above 
writers  contend,  against  new  restrictions  imposed  by  the 
authorities  of  the  Church  on  the  free  spiritual  life  of  parishes 
and  on  their  choice  of  parish  priests.  It  is  true  that  the  priest 
as  the  elect  of  the  mir  little  by  little  had  his  place  taken  by  the 
nominee  of  the  bishop,  in  such  wise  that  the  parish  became  a 
half  administrative,  half  reUgious  unit.  But  the  change  was 
less  due  to  systematic  crushing  out  of  the  interest  taken  by  the 
laity  in  church  matters  than  to  the  fact  that  most  who  were 
so  interested  went  over  to  the  raskol.  Indifferentism  was  not 
forced  on  them,  but  was  a  natural  growth.  That  is  also,  as 
we  saw  above,  the  view  of  Wahszewski. 

Indeed  the  free  election  of  the  pope,  even  when  it  was  a 
reahty,  formed  no  spiritual  tie  between  pastor  and  flock,  just 
because  they  exacted  of  him  no  gifts  of  teaching  or  knowl- 
edge. They  wanted  mass  to  be  sung  regularly  and  the  Sacra- 
ments administered,  especially  to  the  dying,  and  no  more; 
consequently  they  used  their  right  of  election  to  procure  a 
pope  as  cheaply  as  possible,  and  they  wanted  in  their  deacon 
just  one  gifted  with  a  big  voice  for  the  responses.  His  func- 
tion was  that  of  a  deep  tongued  bell.  He  also  served  them  as 
a  clerk  to  keep  accounts  etc.,  but  was  in  any  case  a  luxury, 
and  was  usually  the  gift  of  a  rich  elder,  like  the  chorister  of 
today.  The  government  never  overruled  the  choice  of  the 
parishioners,  and  it  was  their  indifference  which  turned  the 
ministry  into  a  sort  of  trade.  ''What  made  you  turn  priest?" 
asked  Dimitri  of  Rostov  of  one  early  in  the  17th  century. 
''Was  it  to  save  yourself  and  others?  "  "  No,"  was  the  answer, 
"  but  to  support  my  wife  and  children. " 


76  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

The  mere  fact  that  parochial  election  was  conducted  on 
such  grounds  did  not  in  itself  cause  episcopal  nomination  to 
take  its  place.  The  bishop  did  not  grasp  a  privilege  the 
parishioners  resigned.  They  were  not  his  rivals,  but  merely 
let  things  take  their  course;  and  the  result  was  that  parishes, 
hke  other  offices,  became  hereditary,  and  particular  families, 
son  succeeding  sire,  held  particular  benefices  generation  after 
generation,  very  much  as  is  the  case  in  England,  where  '  family 
livings'  are  equally  an  institution.  In  some  parishes  one 
family  owned  the  office  of  priest,  another  that  of  lector,  and 
every  clerical  grade  was  hereditary.  There  was  in  fact  a 
tendency  for  the  clergy  to  become  a  close  guild,  not  through 
legislation  to  that  effect,  but  as  the  result  of  social  tendencies 
working  equally  in  other  spheres  of  administration,  to  which 
free  access  was  as  difficult  for  all  and  sundry  as  to  the  clerical 
office.  Officially  the  priest  was  supposed  to  feel  a  vocation; 
in  practice  he  became  a  wheel  in  the  bureaucratic  machine, 
and  in  this  he  occupied  no  exalted  position,  but  was  humiUated 
to  the  lowest  rung  of  the  ladder.  It  was  only  in  1796  under 
Tsar  Paul  that  proprietors  lost  the  right  of  knouting  the  village 
priests;  their  wives  were  only  exempted  under  Alexander  I 
in  1808,  their  children  under  Nicholas  I  in  1839.  Moreover 
the  Government,  while  closing  all  other  careers  to  the  sons  of 
popes,  set  itself  to  cut  down  the  number  of  parish  clergy  to  the 
lowest  possible  limit,  and  so  forced  the  younger  sons  into  the 
army.  These  disabilities  lasted  from  the  reign  of  Peter  I 
until  1869,  when  at  last  other  services  and  professions  were 
thrown  open  by  Alexander  II  to  clergymen's  sons.  In  earfier 
days,  when  the  office  of  pope  was  still  open  to  others  than  sons 
of  the  clergy,  those  who  assumed  it  usually  did  so  not  from 
rehgious  impulse,  but  in  order  to  avoid  the  taxation  which 
pressed  so  hard  on  the  individual  in  other  walks  of  life. 

The  Raskol  were  sensible  of  this  regress  and  naturally 
preferred  the  old  institutions  to  the  innovations.  They  set  to 
work  to  defend  national  pecuharities  on  the  plea  that  the 
innovations  were  borrowed  from  the  Latins,  which  was  partly 
true,  inasmuch  as  the  outward  veneer  of  the  Government  set 
up  in  Moscow  was  borrowed  from  the  West.    They  were  the 


CONDITIONS  LEADING  TO  THE  SCHISM  77 

champions  of  personal  liberty  and  maintained  that  the  new 
and  harsh  system  of  law  was  an  anti-Christian  institution. 
The  Code  of  Alexis  Michailovich  was  and  still  is  regarded  as  a 
violation  of  Christian  faith.^  Accordingly  in  constituting 
themselves  the  champions  of  the  old,  they  really  took  their 
stand  not  on  the  side  of  what  was  old  as  being  old,  but  as  being 
better. 

^  A.  Shchapov,  Russian  Raskol,  pp.  468,  477. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM 

With  the  council  of  1666  the  Old  believers  began  their  his- 
tory as  a  body  separate  from  the  official  church.  The  prin- 
cipal events  of  the  next  few  years  were  the  Rebellion  at  the 
Solovetski  Monastery,  and  —  even  more  important  —  the 
Revolt  of  the  Streltsy  in  Moscow,  which  led  up  to  the  great 
dispersion  of  the  Old  believers  far  and  wide  in  Russia  and 
even  beyond  its  borders. 

The  Rebellion  at  the  Solovetski  Monastery 

Ivanovski  gives  a  graphic  account  of  the  rebelUon  which 
took  place  in  the  Solovetski  Monastery,  on  the  White  Sea; 
and  as  it  was  typical  of  the  age,  it  is  worthy  to  be  narrated.^ 

Already  before  the  final  rupture  took  place  the  inmates  of 
this  convent  had  shewn  themselves  hostile  to  Nikon's 
ecclesiastical  improvements.  It  is  true  their  abbot  Elias 
attended  the  Council  of  1654  and  even  subscribed  to  the  reso- 
lution passed  by  it  in  favour  of  more  correct  Service-books. 
But  he  could  not  get  a  hearing  for  such  a  project  among  his 
brethren,  who  formally  declined  in  June  1658  to  accept  the 
new  editions  and  adhered  to  the  old  texts.  Even  before  that 
date  their  archimandrite  during  the  Great  Fast  had  induced 
them  to  sign  an  abjuration  of  such  impious  novelties,  and  forti- 
fied by  the  assent  of  his  monks  had  administered  a  sort  of  anti- 
modernist  oath  to  the  clergy  of  the  villages  grouped  round  the 
Monastery.  Elias'  leading  supporters  were  the  Cellarius  Serge, 
Sabbatius  Obrjnitin,  Gerasimus  Thirsov  and  some  other  Elders. 
Three  of  the  brethren,  however,  dissented  and  sent  a  petition 
to  Nikon,  which  never  reached  him,  for  he  had  already  fallen 
into  disgrace  with  the  Tsar  before  it  arrived. 

1  Simeon  Denison's  homeric  account  of  the  Siege  is  accessible  to  English  readers 
in  Will.  Palmer's  the  Patriarch  and  the  Tsar,  vol.  H,  p.  439.  He  also  gives  the  peti- 
tion sent  from  the  convent  to  the  Tsar  in  Oct.  1667. 

79 


80  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

In  1659  Elias  died,  and  his  successor  Bartholomew  of  Vol- 
ogda was  irresolute.  He  had  indeed  been  consecrated  Archi- 
mandrite at  Moscow  according  to  the  new  rites,  and  he  went 
thither  in  1660  and  1664  to  take  part  in  Nikon's  Synods. 
Nevertheless  he  took  no  steps  to  impose  Nikon's  decrees  in  his 
monastery,  and  for  eight  years  the  brethren  continued  in  the 
old  ways  without  the  clerical  bureaucrats  of  Moscow  taking 
any  notice  of  them.  It  was  quite  in  keeping  with  Bartholo- 
mew's toleration  of  the  old  rites  that  in  other  respects  he  was  a 
martinet,  maintaining  an  iron  discipline  among  his  monks. 
He  even  went  to  the  length  of  imprisoning  and  scourging  such 
of  them  as  offended  by  rioting  in  church  or  complaining  of  his 
rigour.  The  Monastery,  however,  remained  a  centre  of  Old 
behevers ;  and  the  Government  did  not  mend  matters  by  send- 
ing thither  for  confinement  numbers  of  rebellious  clerks  and 
elders,  as  well  as  sundry  of  the  laity,  exiled  from  their  homes  as 
criminals  or  notorious  Raskolniks.  A  mihtant  complexion 
was  lent  to  the  monastic  society  gathered  there  by  various  fugi- 
tive Cossacks  who  had  belonged  to  the  band  of  Stenka  Razin.^ 
The  ringleaders  of  the  place  were  Gerasimus  Thirsov,  Genna- 
dius  the  Elder,  Jona  Bryzgalov,  a  runaway  deacon  of  Tula  who 
had  taken  monkish  orders,  John  Stukalov  and  the  deacon 
Ignatius.  Among  the  exiles  sent  to  the  convent  by  way  of 
punishment  was  Prince  Lvov,  who  had  directed  the  Moscow 
printing  press.  The  name  is  famihar  as  that  of  a  leader  of  the 
first  revolutionary  government  in  Petersburg;  another  exile, 
who  presently  led  the  revolt,  was  the  archimandrite  Nicanor, 
who  was  in  villeggiatura  there  after  being  prior  of  the  Mon- 
astery of  St.  Sabba  at  Zvenigorod,  the  Tsar's  summer  residence. 
He  was  a  friend  of  Nikon's  two  arch-enemies,  the  Elder  Theok- 
tistus  and  the  Protopope  Awakum. 

In  1666  the  monks  addressed  a  petition  to  their  archi- 
mandrite, then  attending  the  Council  at  Moscow,  to  be  laid 
before  the  Tsar.  It  contained  a  request  that  they  should  be 
permitted  to  continue  with  the  old  rites;  but  instead  of  pre- 
senting it,  Bartholomew  did  penance  for  observing  them  so 

^  A  Don  Cossack  who  revolted  and  after  ravaging  all  the  cities  of  the  Volga 
was  caught  and  executed  in  Moscow  in  June  1671. 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  81 

long  and  rejecting  the  new.  In  this  he  set  the  example  to  the 
other  members  of  the  Council  on  July  13.  Nicanor  was  not 
present  at  the  Council,  and  had  pleaded  old  age  as  an  excuse 
for  keeping  away  from  it.  Offended  by  the  subserviency  of 
Bartholomew,  the  monks  at  the  instigation  of  Gerasimus 
Thirsov,  petitioned  to  have  him  replaced  by  Nicanor,  and  in 
this  demand  Prince  Lvov  supported  them.  But  Gerasimus 
in  turn  was  now  summoned  to  Moscow,  required  to  do  penance 
and  despatched  to  the  Volokolamski  Monastery,  where  accord- 
ing to  Denisov  he  was  strangled.  The  rebels  at  Solovets  were 
thus  obliged  to  choose  new  ringleaders  and  they  selected 
Alexander  Stukalov,  Gennadius  and  Ephrem. 

The  authorities  in  Moscow  now  began  to  feel  concern,  and 
sent  Sergius,  archimandrite  of  Yaroslav,  to  reduce  the  mutinous 
monks  to  order.  He  was  to  communicate  to  them  the  decision 
of  the  Council  in  favour  of  the  new  rites  and  to  hear  their 
complaints  against  Bartholomew.  To  support  him,  there 
were  sent  with  him  members  of  the  Tsar's  bodyguard.  But 
before  he  arrived  Stukalov  and  Nicanor  had  overcome  the 
hesitancy  of  the  brethren,  deposed  the  Cellarius  Sabbatius 
and  appointed  in  his  stead  an  illiterate  monk  Azariah,  whose 
function  was  to  awaken  the  brethren  of  a  morning.  At  the 
same  time  a  fresh  remonstrance  was  despatched  to  Moscow. 
Sergius  when  he  arrived  was  treated  with  contumely,  confined 
with  his  suite  in  dark  cells,  and  guarded  by  men  armed  with 
clubs.  No  monk  was  allowed  to  communicate  with  him 
except  in  a  general  audience,  and  the  population  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood made  as  if  they  would  stone  him  as  an  emissary  of 
Antichrist.  Ultimately  he  managed  to  escape,  and  warn  the 
authorities  at  Moscow.  He  was  no  sooner  departed  than  the 
treasurer,  who  bore  the  Coptic  name  of  Barsanuphius,  no 
doubt  in  honour  of  the  monophysite  monk  of  Gaza  of  that 
name,  was  deprived  of  his  office,  and  Gerontius,  a  hiero- 
monachus,  entrusted  with  his  functions.  Stukalov  at  the 
same  time  was  sent  with  an  elder  and  a  couple  of  attendants 
to  Moscow  to  lay  a  fresh  petition  before  the  Tsar  who  by  now 
was  thoroughly  incensed  at  the  spirit  of  insubordination 
evinced  by  the  brethren.    It  seems,  however,  to  have  been  a 


82  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

principle  with  this  Tsar,  in  cases  of  ecclesiastical  squabbles, 
to  punish  the  ringleaders  on  both  sides;  and  accordingly, 
while  he  sent  the  petitioners  to  monasteries  under  ecclesiastical 
censure  and  restraint,  he  also  sent  Bartholomew  about  his 
business.  Nicanor  too  was  doomed  to  disappointment;  for 
though  he  was  in  Moscow  at  the  time,  he  was  not  preferred 
to  the  vacant  priorate,  which  was  assigned  instead  to  the 
Elder  Joseph,  architect  of  the  Hostelry  in  Moscow.  The 
comparative  benignity,  remarks  Ivanovski,  with  which  the 
Tsar  treated  the  recalcitrant  monks  only  served  to  excite 
their  fanaticism  and  tempt  them  to  commit  further  excesses. 
There  speaks  the  orthodox  historian. 

The  three,  Joseph,  Nicanor  and  Bartholomew,  all  quitted 
Moscow  for  the  Monastery  at  one  and  the  same  time.  The 
first  two  were  intended  to  stay  there  for  good,  the  last  no 
longer  than  he  would  need  to  do  in  order  to  make  over  the 
conduct  and  goods  of  the  convent  to  Joseph.  Nicanor,  how- 
ever, gave  his  companions  of  the  road  the  sUp  in  Archangel, 
and  sent  the  brethren  a  letter  by  his  valet  warning  them  not 
to  admit  Joseph  or  receive  his  benedictions,  and  this  advice 
they  carried  out.  Ten  days  later,  Sept.  23,  Nicanor  and  his 
partisans  sent  the  Tsar  another  petition  by  the  hand  of  an 
Elder,  Cyril  Chaplin,  whose  English  name  recalls  the  discovery 
of  Russia  by  the  Merchant  Adventurers  more  than  a  century 
before;  he  also  bore  a  missive  from  the  archimandrite  Joseph, 
whom,  along  with  Bartholomew,  the  monks  were  treating 
with  disrespect,  confining  both  of  them  to  cells  from  within 
which  they  could  hear  abuse  lavished  on  them  by  all  without. 
They  were  boycotted  and  threatened  and  forbidden  to  ap- 
proach the  altar,  to  kiss  cross,  gospel  or  ikons.  Finally  they 
were  bundled  out  in  mid-winter  on  to  the  bank  of  the  river. 
Simultaneously  the  monks  sent  the  Tsar  a  fifth  petition,  drawn 
up  by  Gerontius  the  treasurer,  more  stringent  than  any  of  the 
former  ones.  It  is  not  known  if  it  ever  reached  the  hands  of 
the  Tsar;  but  in  any  case  it  was  printed  later  on  and  scattered 
broadcast  among  the  Raskolniks. 

Joseph's  letter  denoimcing  the  mutinous  conduct  of  the 
brethren  reached  the  Tsar,  who  promptly  ordered  the  goods 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  83 

of  the  convent  to  be  sequestrated;  while  the  council  of  Moscow 
which  had  not  yet  broken  up,  excommunicated  them.  But 
confiscation  and  anathema  had  lost  their  terrors  for  the  ring- 
leaders, who  merely  set  about  to  strengthen  their  defences 
against  the  Tsar's  officer  Volokhov  who  in  the  autumn  of  1668 
was  sent  with  a  troop  of  soldiers  to  reduce  them  to  obedience. 
They  began  by  allowing  such  of  the  inmates  as  were  unwilUng 
to  face  a  siege  to  depart,  and  of  this  privilege,  eleven  of  the 
monkish  and  nine  of  the  white  clergy  availed  themselves, 
and  crossed  over  to  the  Sumski  bank  of  the  river  which  the 
convent  over-looked, —  a  circumstance  that  alone  enabled 
its  defenders  to  stand  a  siege. 

Volokhov  unsuccessfully  beleaguered  the  place  for  four  years, 
at  the  expiration  of  which  Clement  lovlev,  captain  of  the 
Moscow  imperial  guard,  took  his  place;  a  year  later  he  in 
turn  gave  way  to  Meshcherinov  the  voevoda  or  general. 
Nicanor  meanwhile  was  life  and  soul  of  the  defence,  ably 
seconded  by  his  valet  or  body  servant  Thaddeus.  The  garri- 
son sustained  a  heavy  blow,  however,  in  the  loss  of  Azariah 
the  Cellarius,  who,  before  Volokhov  took  his  departure,  was 
caught  out  fishing  by  the  enemy  along  with  a  few  other  monks 
and  sundry  laymen,  assisting  in  so  necessary  a  sport.  Their 
boats  armed  with  small  guns  also  fell  into  the  possession  of 
the  enemy.  Early  in  1670,  against  the  better  judgment  of 
several  of  the  monks,  the  ringleaders  had  determined  to  use 
the  Dutch  artillery,  with  which  the  convent  was  armed,  against 
the  imperial  troops,  and  Nicanor  having  mounted  the  tower 
and  sprinkled  the  guns  with  holy  water,  had  apostrophised 
them  in  the  words:  'Little  Dutch  mothers,  our  hopes  are 
centred  in  you,  protect  us!" 

Eventually  internal  quarrels  led  to  the  downfall  of  this  old- 
beheving  fortress.  Several  monks  who  wanted  to  surrender 
are  said  to  have  been  starved  to  death,  and  it  is  possible  that 
the  more  resolute  in  their  determination  to  hold  out  kept 
the  dwindling  stocks  of  provisions  for  themselves;  the  victims 
are  said  to  have  courted  their  fate  by  insisting  on  continuing 
to  pray  for  the  Tsar  in  the  hturgy.  After  they  had  been  got 
rid  of  in  this  cruel  manner,  certain  unordained  monks,  says 


84  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Ivanovski,  ventured  to  celebrate  the  rites  and  to  hear  confes- 
sions and  grant  absolution,  while  some  even  were  left,  if  indeed 
they  had  any  choice,  to  die  without  the  Sacraments. 

Among  the  few  brethren  who,  escaping  from  the  fortress  on 
the  arrival  of  Meshcherinov,  went  over  to  the  enemy,  was  an 
Elder  named  Theoktistus,  and  he  revealed  to  the  Voevoda  a 
secret  entrance  by  way  of  a  conduit  under  the  White  Tower,  so, 
Denisov  quaintly  adds,  betraying  the  convent  as  Aeneas  and 
Antenor  betrayed  the  Trojans.  Through  it  the  troops  gained 
access  to  the  interior,  and  in  a  moment,  the  siege,  which  had 
lasted  eight  years,  was  at  an  end,  Jan.  22,  1676.  All  the  monks 
were  pitilessly  executed,  and  a  fresh  company  of  celibates, 
more  amenable  to  the  new  discipUne  of  Moscow,  was  sent  to 
take  their  place. 

The  importance  of  this  episode,  rightly  remarks  our  historian, 
was  not  to  be  measured  so  much  by  its  military  aspects  as  by 
its  effect  on  the  imagination  of  a  rehgiously-minded  peasantry. 
For  ages  the  convent  had  been  a  centre  of  popular  pilgrimage, 
and  continued  to  be  so  all  through  the  siege.  It  was  the  shrine 
of  the  great  Christian  athletes  Zosimus  and  Sabbatius.  The 
pious  arrived  beneath  its  walls  and,  finding  it  beleaguered, 
so  that  they  could  not  gain  admission,  returned  to  their  homes 
with  indignant  tales  of  the  oppression  and  violence  exercised 
by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  Moscow.  Not  only  the  pil- 
grims, but  inmates  of  the  convent  who  escaped  before  and 
during  the  siege,  carried  far  and  wide  over  The  Pomorye,  as  the 
drear  coastlands  of  the  White  Sea  are  called,  the  legend  of  the 
brilUant  exploits  and  ultimate  martyrdom  of  its  gallant  defend- 
ers. Forty  years  later  Semen  Denisov,  a  poet  of  the  Raskol, 
celebrated  the  siege  in  an  epic  which  has  enjoyed  an  enormous 
success  for  two  centuries.  The  poem  of  course  teems  with 
visions  and  miracles;  the  rebels  are  extolled  as  martyrs,  the 
Tsar  is  an  emissary  of  Satan,  who  perishes  on  the  very  day  the 
convent  fell.  He  really  died  a  week  later;  but  the  rehgious, 
like  the  patriotic  propagandist,  prefers  poetical  justice  to  that 
of  dates,  and  the  sacrifice  of  truth  in  this  case  was  slight. 
Ivanovski  plaintively  remarks  that  Denisov  and  his  readers 
should  have  borne  in  mind  that  Christian  martyrs  never  either 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  85 

rioted  or  rebelled  against  an  emperor's  authority,  and  argues 
that  the  defenders  of  the  Solovets  convent  had  no  title  to  be 
called  martyrs,  for  they  were  only  mutineers.  He  is  strangely 
ignorant  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum. 

The  Revolt  of  1682. 

On  May  15, 1682,  a  revolution^  broke  out  in  Moscow  which 
continued  until  it  was  repressed  with  ruthless  energy  by  Peter 
the  Great  in  1698.  In  essential  respects  this  resembled  that 
of  1917.  For  it,  too,  was  a  joint  revolt  of  the  Streltsy,  the 
Praetorian  guard  of  the  day,  and  of  the  populace.  After 
rioting  for  three  days,  and  murdering  many  who  were  obnoxi- 
ous to  them,  the  soldiers  proclaimed  the  two  striplings  John 
and  Peter  Alexeevichi  to  be  both  Tsars  under  the  regency 
of  their  elder  sister  Sophia.  A  certain  Prince  Ivan  Khovanski 
who  possessed  a  mansion  in  Moscow  was  a  partisan  of  the  Ras- 
kol,  and  had  long  incurred  suspicion  by  harbouring  fugitive 
priests  and  using  the  old  books  in  his  private  chapel.  He  was 
captain  of  the  Streltsy  and  had  little  difficulty  in  investing 
what  was  in  origin  a  mutiny  of  soldiers  with  the  character  of 
an  Old  believer  rising.  To  him  as  officer  of  the  guard  was 
presented  a  petition  for  the  restoration  of  the  old  piety  drawn 
up  by  a  monk  Sergius.  He  professed  his  readiness  to  cham- 
pion the  cause  and  promised  to  allow  the  Raskolniks  to  dis- 
cuss publicly  their  faith  in  the  square  where  executions  took 
place;  It  sounds  a  grim  project,  but  we  must  not  forget  that 
the  finest  open  spaces  in  Europe  were  but  a  few  generations  ago 
consecrated  to  such  uses.  The  petition  was  naturally  approved 
by  the  mutinous  soldiery  who  can  have  had  no  idea  of  what 
it  was  about.  Nicetas  Dobrynin,  also  named  Pustosviat, 
who  had  been  pope  or  parish  priest  of  Suzdal  and  had  hypo- 
critically given  his  adherence  at  the  council  of  1666  to  the  new 
church  regulations,  was  chosen  to  conduct  the  debate  in  the 
presence  of  the  young  princes  and  the  regent. 

The  project  failed  however  for  the  moment,  and  the  petition 
alone  was  presented  to  the  royalties.     On  June  25  took  place 

1  Macariu.?,  Hist,  of  Raskol:  Solovyev,  Hist,  of  Russ.  1. 12:  Bratskoe  Slovo,  1875, 
bk.4. 


86  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  coronation  of  the  two  httle  Tsars,  the  rite  being  performed 
from  the  new  books,  and  in  the  hturgy  instead  of  seven,  only  five 
prosphorae  ^  were  offered,  a  number  displeasing  to  the  Raskol- 
niks.  Nevertheless  Nicetas  held  a  service  in  honour  of  the 
occasion  in  the  Uspenski  Church  along  the  old  hues  as  a  sort  of 
counter-demonstration  with  the  permission  of  Khovanski; 
and  this  modest  success  inspired  the  partisans  of  the  'old  piety' 
to  conduct  a  procession  through  Moscow  with  ikons  and  books. 
Street  preachers  denounced  the  profanation  of  the  churches 
and  service-books,  and  appealed  to  the  multitude  to  defend 
the  old  faith.  Adherents  of  the  new  order  were  roughly 
handled  by  the  crowd. 

On  July  3  the  Raskolniks  began  a  pubUc  discussion  with 
Joakim  the  patriarch  in  his  palace  of  the  Cross,  of  which 
Sabba  Romanov,  one  of  those  who  took  part  in  it,  has  left  us 
a  description.  It  was  renewed  two  days  later  in  the  square 
of  the  royal  palace.  The  Old  believers  came  with  their  books 
and  their  cross,  their  pulpit  and  their  lighted  tapers,  and 
Nicetas  standing  on  a  dais  began  to  read  his  diatribe  before 
the  people.  He  wanted  a  public  discussion  of  his  thesis,  but 
the  authorities  declined  this  as  unseemly  and  invited  him 
into  the  palace,  where  the  lady  regent  Sophia  was  present  with 
several  other  princesses,  her  aunt  Tatyana  Mikhailovna,  her 
sister  Maria  Alexeevna  and  the  Tsaritsa  NataUa  Kirileovna. 
There  were  present  also  the  patriarch  and  sundry  archpriests. 
Asked  what  he  wanted,  Nicetas  returned:  "To  supplicate 
humbly  concerning  the  correction  of  the  books.  A  new  faith 
has  been  introduced  among  us."  Athanasius,  bishop  of 
Khohnogory,  repUed  for  his  patriarch,  whereupon  Nicetas, 
according  to  the  official  report  of  the  case,  struck  Athanasius 
and  abused  the  Patriarch.  Sabba  however  who  was  present 
states  that  he  merely  led  him  slightly  aside  with  his  hand. 
The  Princess  Sophia  then  began  to  reproach  Nicetas  with 
having  recanted  in  1666,  and  Nicetas  rephed,  no  doubt  truly, 
that  he  had  only  done  so  out  of  fear.  The  Princess  thereupon 
irritated  by  the  way  her  father  Cyril  and  brother  Ivan  were 

^  i.e.,  the  loaves  from  which  bread  for  consecration  was  taken.     These  loaves 
were  offered  in  the  deacon's  chamber  and  not  at  the  altar  on  the  bema. 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCfflSM  87 

spoken  of  in  the  petition  (both  of  them  had  been  murdered 
by  the  mutinous  soldiers)  threatened  to  withdraw  from  Mos- 
cow with  the  rest  of  the  Royal  Family.  At  the  same  time, 
Joakim,  gospel  in  hand,  proceeded  to  address  a  reprimand  to 
the  Old  behevers,  who  received  his  remarks  with  derision, 
signing  themselves  with  two  fingers  —  their  most  effective 
method  no  doubt  of  exorcism, —  and  shouting  'Thus,  thus!' 
The  interview  then  broke  up,  and  the  Raskolniks  proceeded 
to  promenade  about  the  city,  entered  the  churches  and  said 
prayers  in  their  own  fashion,  and  beat  the  bells. 

Sophia,  a  capable  and  determined  woman,  like  most  of  the 
women  who  have  from  time  to  time  controlled  the  fortunes  of 
Russia,  now  took  prompt  steps  to  separate  the  cause  of  the 
revolted  soldiery  from  that  of  the  populace.  She  succeeded 
by  means  of  her  donatives,  and  so  far  regained  their  loyalty 
that  they  made  themselves  the  agents  of  the  arrest  of  Nicetas, 
who  was  instantly  beheaded  for  rebeUion.  This  was  July  21, 
1682.  His  followers  were  banished  to  monasteries  for  correc- 
tion. The  revolt  of  the  Streltsy,  it  is  true,  was  not  quelled 
and  went  on  simmering;  but  henceforth  it  had  httle  or  no 
connection  with  the  grievances  of  the  Old  behevers. 

The  Ukaze  of  1685  and  Its  Results 

There  followed  the  Tsaritsa  Sophia's  ukase  of  1685,  one  of 
the  most  draconian  statutes  on  the  page  of  history.  It 
utterly  proscribed  the  dissidents  and  forbade  their  very  exist- 
ence. If  detected,  they  were  to  be  subjected  to  three-fold 
torture,  after  which,  if  they  did  not  recant,  they  were  to  be 
burned  ahve.  If  they  repented  they  were  to  be  sent  for 
correction  to  an  ecclesiastical  prison.  Those  who  had  re- 
baptized  a  convert  were  to  be  put  to  death,  no  matter  whether 
they  repented  or  not;  those  they  baptized  to  be  knouted  in 
case  of  repentance,  but,  in  the  opposite  case,  slain.  Anyone 
who  harboured  them,  even  unwittingly,  was  hable  to  a  fine  of 
5  to  50  roubles,  in  those  days  a  great  sum  of  money. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  dissidents  did  not  wait  to  be 
caught,  and  a  great  flight  of  them  followed  into  the  farthest 
forests  and  deserts  of  Russia  and  even  across  the  frontiers, 


88  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

for  it  was  impossible  to  draw  such  a  cordon  that  they  could 
not  escape  from  the  Empire. 

"In  order  the  more  freely  to  wander  from  city  to  city  and 
from  \dllage  to  village,  the  itinerant  preachers  and  mission- 
aries cleverly  assumed  all  sorts  of  disguises.  Sometimes  they 
made  their  way  in  the  garb  of  beggars,  with  wallet  on  back. 
This  was  supposed  to  hold  the  alms  of  the  charitable,  but  more 
often  it  concealed  Raskol  books  and  tracts;  at  other  times  they 
assumed  the  garb  of  pilgrims;  often  they  travelled  as  peddlers 
and  colporteurs,  with  bags  on  their  backs  in  which  equally 
they  hid  the  hterature  of  their  teachers."  ^ 

For  all  that,  remarks  Uzov,  they  were  caught  often  enough, 
and  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  the  teaching  grew  up  among 
them  of  the  expediency  of  suicide  en  masse.  P.  Mihukov 
(Outhnes  of  Russian  civiUzation,  4th  ed.  pt.  1,  p.  71)  estimates 
that  from  the  beginning  of  the  Raskol  to  end  of  1689  as  many 
as  20,000  burned  themselves  ahve,  and  most  of  these  in  the 
last  nine  years  when  Sophia's  ukase  was  being  executed  against 
them. 

"The  self-immolation  of  the  Raskolniks  was  in  their  time  as 
heroic  an  exploit  as  we  should  to-day  account  a  similar  action 
on  the  part  of  the  defenders  of  a  fortress."  ^  "Let  us  baffle 
Antichrist,"  ^  was  the  cry  with  which  the  Raskolniks  rallied 
one  another's  courage  and  declared  it  preferable  to  burn  them- 
selves ahve  than  give  themselves  up  into  the  hands  of  a  Govern- 
ment they  detested.  For  the  rest,  it  must  be  admitted  that  "it 
was  perfectly  logical  reasoning  on  their  part;  it  was  better 
once  for  all  to  settle  accounts  with  this  life  than  be  deprived 
of  it  by  inhuman  tortures;  moreover,  they  argued,  you  may 
fail  in  the  trial  and  against  your  will  deny  your  convictions 
after  all."  ^  "Many  have  affirmed  that  self-immolation  was  a 
peculiar  dogma  of  the  Raskolniks.  Had  this  been  so,  we  should 
meet  with  cases  of  voluntary  self-immolation,  provoked  by  this 
teaching,  without  any  other  incentives.     But  in  fact  in  all  the 

*  Shchapov,  Russ.  Rask.,  p.  313. 

^  Vestnik,  Evrop.  1871,  No.  4,  Kostomarov's  art.,  p.  494. 
'  The  Raskol  revealed  in  their  own  Hist.  p.  228. 

*  Vremya,  1862,  No.  1,  art.  by  Aristov,  p.  95. 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  89 

known  cases  this  form  of  death  was  chosen  as  an  alternative  to 
forcible  capture  by  army  commandos,  and  for  the  most  part  it 
was  only  adopted  when  their  homes  were  being  attacked. 
What  was  there  to  induce  a  few  fanatics,  who  had  won  over 
ignorant  peasants,  to  resort  to  so  horrible  a  measure?  They 
furnish  themselves  an  answer  to  the  question  in  the  historical 
and  trustworthy  pictures  they  penned  of  contemporary  perse- 
cution: ''Everywhere  blows  resound;  everywhere  thrashings 
and  subjugation  to  his  yoke  follow  in  the  train  of  Nikon's 
teaching;  everywhere  whips  and  rods  soaked  daily  in  the 
blood  of  confessors.  The  preachers  of  Nikon's  new  ideas 
breathe,  not  the  spirit  of  gentleness,  but  that  of  fury,  wrath, 
tyranny.  Beatings  and  wounds,  such  are  the  methods  of  their 
instruction,  and  not  the  grace  of  Christ;  guile  and  evil  deceit, 
and  not  apostolic  humiUty;  with  these  they  would  spread 
their  faith,  and  the  outcome  of  their  cruel  violence  and  tyranny 
is  a  rain  of  blood.  Village  and  field  are  bathed  in  tears, 
wilderness  and  forest  are  loud  with  weeping  and  moaning  and 
groaning .  .  .  Some  suffered  for  the  faith,  others  hid  themselves 
wherever  they  could,  others  when  the  invaders,  the  persecutors, 
shewed  themselves  with  guns  and  weapons,  assiu-ed  of  martyr- 
dom, burned  themselves  alive."  ^  Now  and  then,  when  they 
saw  the  forces  sent  against  them  to  be  weak,  they  tried  to 
escape,  and  for  a  time  were  successful.  Thus,  for  example, 
they  one  day  forced  a  commando  to  retire,  having  slain  the 
captain,  Portnovski;  but  on  that  occasion  they  only  fired  with 
the  wads,  out  of  terror;  but  irritation  against  the  authorities 
took  the  shape  of  cutting  the  dead  body  of  Portnovski  to  bits.^ 
We  may  thus  affirm  without  injustice  to  the  facts  "that  self- 
immolation  was  their  last  mode  of  escape.  In  no  other  sense 
was  it  ever  adopted  as  a  dogma  than  as  a  way  of  avoiding  per- 
secution and  of  escape  from  the  rack,  which  was  always  in  store 
for  such  Old  believers  as  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Govern- 
ment." ^ 

^  Hist,  of  the  Vygovski  Old  bel.  hermitage,  By  Ivan  Philippov,  V  and  VI. 

2  ibid.  ch.  7. 

3  Nation.  Memorials,  1863,  No.  2,  art.  by  Esipov,  p.  607. 


90  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Peter  the  Great 

In  the  year  1689  another  poHtical  revolution  took  place; 
Sophia  was  driven  from  power  and  sent  into  a  convent;  and 
her  brother,  Peter  the  Great,  mounted  the  throne.  He  was 
for  some  time  too  occupied  with  more  pressing  matters  to 
turn  his  attention  to  the  Raskol,  and  they  made  use  of  the 
precious  respite  accorded  them  to  estabhsh  their  various 
settlements,  which  were  at  first  formed,  if  not  along  strict 
monastic  Hnes,  at  any  rate  with  a  show  of  monastic  terminol- 
ogy. 

One  of  his  first  actions  was  to  suppress  the  lingering  revolt 
of  the  Streltsy.  "Rumours  of  their  awful  punishment  were 
carried  all  over  Russia  and  struck  terror  into  the  hearts  of 
the  people,"  ^  who  regarded  their  Emperor  with  horror,  and  the 
word  Antichrist,  whispered  by  the  Raskolniks,  was  now 
bruited  far  and  wide.  "But  Peter  annihilated  the  Streltsy, 
and  the  popular  risings  came  to  nothing.  The  power  was  in 
the  end  in  his  hands . . .  After  his  terrible  vengeance  was  wreaked 
on  the  Streltsy,  he  could  do  exactly  as  he  pleased."  ^  So-caUed 
"European  reforms"  were  forthwith  sprung  upon  the  people, 
tax-gatherers  and  press-gangs  were  everywhere,  the  peasant 
labourers  were  lowered  to  the  condition  of  serfs.  A  hundred 
thousand  of  the  people  perished  on  pubhc  works,  i.e.  in  the 
building  of  Petersburg,  of  fortresses,  canals;  for  the  Sovereign 
in  his  reforms  had  at  heart  the  strengthening  of  his  own  prerog- 
atives and  not  the  happiness  of  the  people. 

"The  system  of  administration  he  raised  was  mechanical 
and  arbitrary,  centralization  was  carried  in  dry  hard  style  into 
ridiculous  details.  MultipUcation  of  provincial  bureaucrats, 
division  of  his  subjects  into  castes,  contempt  for  Russian  popu- 
lar Ufe  with  all  its  traditions  and  leanings  to  local  pecuharities, 
—  all  this  served  to  rouse  the  hostility  of  the  people  for  the 
amelioration  of  whose  fate  he  did  nothing  at  all."  ^  Under 
Peter  the  Government  steadily  pursued  its  work  of  centrahza- 

1  Raskol  Happenings  in  18th  Century,  by  H.  (G)  Esipov,  t.  1,  p.  8,  and  t.  2, 
p.  162. 
»  IMd. 
3  Aristov  in  Fremt/a  (Time)  1862,  No.  1,  p.  77. 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  91 

tion,  yet  the  masses  "impelled  by  mediaeval  tendencies  to 
separation  and  setting  at  naught  the  new  ideas  of  administra- 
tion, refused  to  submit  to  a  scheme  of  unification,  and  with 
considerable  resilience  strove  to  maintain  the  ancient  system 
or,  as  the  documents  characteristically  put  it,  to  break  off."  '• 

The  administrators  ''did  everything  they  could  to  bind  the 
people  with  eternal  bonds,  spared  no  effort  to  reconstruct 
society  according  to  an  arbitrary  plan  which  lacked  all  basis 
in  life  and  reason  nor  had  any  roots  in  popular  ideas,  feelings  or 
aspirations."  ^  A  fresh  swarm  of  about  10,000  foreigners  from 
the  West,  mostly  Germans,  descended  upon  Russia,  and  were 
concentrated  by  Peter  in  Moscow,  ''illuminated  instructors 
who  made  no  effort  to  grasp  the  deeper  popular  tendencies  and 
needs  of  the  national  spirit,  but  held  the  people  tight  by  the 
bearing-rein  of  their  methods  and  regarded  them  as  so  many 
country  bumpkins."  ^  But  "in  the  soul  of  the  people  was 
engrained  a  deep  and  powerful  bias  against  royal  prerogatives, 
and  a  profound  distaste  for  a  fiat  governmental  rule  the  same 
for  all,  an  instinct  to  be  free  from  the  strict  regime  of  a  single 
absolute  authority,  to  assert  their  own  will  and  manage  their 
own  affairs.  The  very  idea  of  a  supreme  authority,  of  autoc- 
racy, which  attained  full  development  in  the  rule  of  an 
Emperor  had  never  yet  penetrated  the  entire  people."  ^ 
"Seditious"  tracts  were  pubhshed,  penned,  by  the  admission 
of  the  authors,  "  because  of  their  sympathy  with  the  people," 
or  "for  their  advantage  and  in  order  to  alleviate  the  weight  of 
taxation."  In  these  it  was  contended  that  God  made  man 
"in  his  own  image  and  hkeness,  and  that  it  was  God's  own 
ordinance  that  man  should  be  absolute  master  of  himself."  * 
The  Russian  steam-roller  invented  by  Tartar  tyranny  and 
perfected  by  Peter  the  Great  was  never  much  admired  by  the 
Russians  themselves. 

The  Old  beUevers  led  the  opposition  to  the  reforms  of  Peter  I, 
alleging  that  he  "was  an  agent  of  all  wickedness  and  of  Satan's 
will,  and  had  raised  himself  on  high  above  all  false  gods." 

^  Shchapov,  Russian  Raskol,  p.  465. 

2  Vremya,  1862,  No.  1,  art.  by  Aristov,  p.  78. 

3  Shchapov,  op.  cit.,  p.  471. 

*  Esipov,  op.  cit.  t.  1,  pp.  165,  182. 


92  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

He  was,  they  declared,  a  false  Messiah  who  magnified  himself 
and  surrounded  himself  with  glory  before  all.  In  1721  Peter 
assumed  the  title  of  Patriarch,  took  the  name  of  Father  of  his 
country,  as  the  pamphlet  'Kingdom  of  the  Dead'  attests 
against  him  (p.  115),  made  himself  head  of  the  Russian  Church 
and  autocrat;  he  now  had  no  one  on  an  equality  with  himself, 
and  appropriated  not  only  the  authority  of  Tsar,  but  of  priest- 
hood and  Godhead.  He  became  absolute  shepherd  of  a  head- 
less church,  the  adversary  of  Christ,  in  a  word  Antichrist."  ^ 
As  Shchapov  remarks,  the  Old  beUevers  ominously  com- 
plained that  Peter  the  Great  ''called  himself  Emperor  and 
Monarch,  that  is  to  say  sole  ruler  and  sole  authority,  thereby 
assuming  the  title  of  God  of  Russia,  as  is  testified  in  the  pam- 
phlet 'Peter's  Cabinet'  in  which  it  was  said:  "Behold  thy  God, 
behold  thy  God,  0  Russia!"  ^ 

Accordingly  the  Raskolniks  rose  against  all  the  statutes 
and  edicts  by  which  Peter  set  himself  to  uphold  his  autocratic 
rule.  They  declared  the  census  Hst  to  be  Antichiist's  list, 
and  taught  the  people  not  to  inscribe  their  names  in  it.  "We," 
they  wrote,  "have  been  instructed  by  Christ  in  his  law,  and 
we  keep  his  commandment  and  preserve  the  holy  faith;  and 
therefore  we  refuse  to  submit  ourselves  to  such  a  false  Christ 
and  to  obey  him;  never  will  we  inscribe  ourselves  in  his  books 
and  share  the  transgressions  of  the  impious,  nay,  we  will  not 
counsel  anyone  to  do  so  who  desires  to  be  saved."  "Verily 
we  see  fulfilled  the  mystery  of  the  Apocalypse;  the  reign  of 
the  primal  beast  is  established  among  us,  and  the  earth  and 
all  that  live  thereon  are  made  to  bow  the  knee  to  Satan  and 
say :  '  Settle  our  account,  we  beg  you  humbly  to  grant  us  pass- 
ports.' He  will  answer:  'Out  with  your  poll-tax  for  the  new 
year,  and  are  there  no  other  arrears  to  pay  up,  for  you  live 
on  my  earth?'  There  you  have  a  deep  pit  for  the  destruction 
of  the  human  race."  ^ 

From  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  the  Russian  Government 

^  Proceedings  of  the  Imperial  Society  of  History  and  Antiquities,  1863,  bk.  1, 
pp.  53  and  63. 

^  Shchapov,  Russ.  Rask.,  p.  478. 

'  Imperial  Society  of  History  and  Antiquities,  1863,  vol.  1,  pp.  55,  58,  59. 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  93 

spent  time  and  trouble  on  the  compilation  of  statistics,  of 
which,  however,  it  never  made  much  use.  If  we  bear  in  mind 
that  the  project  of  a  methodical  census  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  United  Kingdom  when  it  was  first  mooted  late  in  the 
XVIIIth  Century,  provoked  angry  protests  from  religious 
people,  and  was  actually  rejected  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the 
ground  that,  like  the  similar  experiment  of  King  David,  it 
might  call  down  upon  the  land  the  wrath  of  God,  we  shall 
not  be  surprised  at  the  acute  displeasure  of  the  Raskol  when 
Peter  the  Great  imposed  a  census  and  a  poll-tax  on  them  nearly 
a  century  earlier.  In  1890  it  was  still  one  of  the  chief  griev- 
ances of  the  Armenians  under  Russia's  rule,  that  the  Govern- 
ment obUged  them  to  register  their  births,  deaths  and  mar- 
riages. They  had  suffered  no  such  indignity  under  Turkish 
and  Persian  rule,  and  it  partly  explained  the  saying,  then  and 
now  common  among  them,  that  whereas  the  Turk  only  slew 
their  bodies,  the  Russian  slew  their  souls.  We  shall  have  occa- 
sion, however,  to  point  out  later  on  that  the  rehgious  census 
prepared  under  the  auspices  of  the  Russian  State  and  Church 
has  no  statistical  value  whatever  and  was  only  contrived  to 
deceive  and  conceal  facts.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Raskol 
also,  in  combating  a  census  under  Peter,  adduced  the  warning 
example  of  King  David's  reign. 

"The  Raskol  rebelled  against  the  very  structure  and  organi- 
zation of  the  imperial  government,  beginning  with  the  Senate 
and  the  provincial  administration.  Everywhere  the  dissidents 
found  fault  with  aspects  of  the  administration  which  conflicted 
with  the  welfare  of  the  people,  and  exploited  the  disorders 
which  broke  out  in  the  provinces  for  strengthening  their 
influence  and  extending  it."  ^ 

Pitirim,  bishop  of  Krutits,  Nikon's  successor,  in  his  report 
to  Peter  I,  said  of  them:  "Wherever  you  find  them,  instead  of 
being  pleased  with  the  good  fortune  of  the  Sovereign,  they 
delight  in  his  misfortunes."  ^ 

Such  was  the  attitude  of  the  Old  believers  to  the  pbUcy  of 
Peter  the  Great,  and  they  continued  their  hatred  of  his  govern- 

^  Shchapov,  Russ.  Rask.  p.  515. 

^  Imperial  Society  History  and  Antiquities,  1860,  bk.  4,  p.  281. 


94  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

ment  to  that  of  his  successors:  ''We behold,"  they  said,  ''what 
a  spirit  of  impiety  works  and  shall  work  to  the  end  of  the  world 
in  all  holders  of  power."  ^  They  remained  obstinate,  and  to 
this  day,  says  Uzov,  the  Old  beUevers  retain  this  conviction; 
only  a  fraction  of  them  under  the  influence  of  the  reforms  of 
the  present  regime  (1881),  have  begun  to  relax  the  severity 
with  which  they  judge  the  Government.  Their  spokesman, 
Macarius  Ivanovich  Stukachev,  an  adherent  of  the  Theo- 
dosian  sect,  in  his  address  to  the  Tsar  Liberator  in  the  Sixties, 
intimated  as  much:  "In  the  innovations,"  he  wrote,  "of  your 
regime  we  seem  to  behold  our  good  old  time."  ^  In  such  words 
we  detect  the  point  of  view  of  the  Old  beUevers  in  their  opposi- 
tion to  the  Government  and  seize  the  meaning  of  the  '  good  old 
times '  for  which  they  stood. 

Tsardom  and  Antichrist 

Almost  from  the  dawn  of  Christianity  the  teaching  about  an 
Antichrist  or  counter-Messiah,  if  not  Satan  himself,  at  any 
rate  his  heutenant,  has  furnished  enthusiasts  with  a  theme  for 
prophecy  and  dreary  dissertations;  and  it  has  been  cynically 
observed  that  no  student  can  long  preoccupy  his  mind  with 
that  most  characteristic  work  of  mixed  Jewish  and  Christian 
piety,  the  so-called  Book  of  Revelation,  without  jeopardizing 
his  reason.  Never  have  the  Kings  of  the  Gentiles  raged  furi- 
ously and  devoted  themselves  to  the  ever  congenial  task  of 
violating  the  essential  spirit  and  precepts  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
by  setting  their  subjects  to  cut  one  another's  throats,  without 
an  appeal  being  made  by  each  side  to  this  bizarre  monument. 
During  the  recent  war  French  divines  found  in  it  a  prophecy 
of  German  barbarism,  and  their  German  counterparts  read  in 
it  a  record  of  French,  Russian  and  Enghsh  impiety.  We  are 
not  therefore  surprised  to  find  that  such  vaticinations  filled  a 
large  space  in  the  mind  of  the  Russian  dissidents.  Their 
attitude  towards  Nikon  and  the  Tsar  of  the  time  was  summed 
up  in  the  behef  that  the  two  men  were  the  instruments,  if  not  the 
impersonation,  of  Antichrist. 

1  Ibid.,  1863,  Bk.  1,  p.  59. 

2  Istina  (Truth)  1867,  bk.  2. 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  95 

The  Messiah  himself,  according  to  an  early  tradition,  had 
disclaimed  knowledge  of  his  second  advent  on  earth,  but  was 
sure  that  it  would  on  the  one  hand  usher  in  the  end  of  the  world, 
on  the  other  be  preceded  by  the  appearance  of  Antichrist;  and 
accordingly  in  the  24th  and  25th  chapters  of  the  first  Gospel 
we  find  enumerated  from  some  contemporary  apocalyptic 
document  the  signs  that  are  to  herald  the  last  days.  But  in 
every  age  Christian  teachers  have  claimed  a  knowledge  which 
was  denied  to  the  Founder;  and  the  author  or  redactor  of 
the  Book  of  Revelation  which  closes  the  canon  of  the  New 
Testament  was  already  acquainted  with  the  exact  chronology 
of  Antichrist  and  knew  that  Satan  was  to  be  bound  for  a 
thousand  years,  whence  it  was  argued  that  the  world  would 
end  in  A.  D.  1000. 

But  alongside  of  this  behef  was  current  another,  equally 
ancient,  that  this  great  event  was  timed  7000  years  from  Crea- 
tion, because  one  day  in  the  Scriptures  symbohzes  a  thousand 
years,  and  as  the  world  took  seven  days  to  complete,  so  it  will 
run  for  an  equal  period.  Rome,  the  imperial  city,  was  to 
endure  to  the  end.  When  old  Rome  fell  in  the  fifth  century 
the  rehgious  imagination  found  no  difficulty  in  readjusting  itself 
to  events,  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  prophecy  regarded  not 
old  but  new  Rome  or  Byzance.  Presently  new  Rome  fell  also 
into  the  power  of  the  Turks  in  1453,  and  then  it  looked  as  if  the 
visions  of  the  seer  were  really  to  be  fulfilled,  for  5508,  the  tale  of 
years  which  according  to  Christian  chronologists  had  preceded 
the  birth  of  Jesus  added  to  1453  made  a  total  of  6961  which  was 
not  far  from  7000.     The  full  period  would  mature  in  1492. 

That  year  also  came  and  went  without  any  cataclysm;  and 
then  in  Russia  arose  a  new  interpretation  of  the  prophecy,  of 
which  few  echoes  ever  reached  Western  Europe.  This  was 
the  remarkable  theory  that  in  default  of  old  and  new  Rome, 
Moscow  was  the  imperial  city,  was  the  third  Rome  of  which, 
as  was  thought  to  be  foretold  by  St.  Paul  in  II.  Thess.  ii, 
7,  the  mission  is  to  be  the  last  refuge  of  orthodoxy  and  to 
hold  down  the  Antichrist.  The  Russians  shared  the  Hussite 
behef  that  by  A.  D.  1000,  if  not  earUer,  the  Pope  of  Rome  had 
become  the  precursor  of  Antichrist,  and  this  view  is  enunciated 


96  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

in  the  so-called  Book  of  Cyril  compiled  by  Zizania.  The 
author  of  another  work,  which  circulated  in  XVIIth  Century- 
Russia,  the  Book  of  Faith,  shewed  that  in  1439  at  the  Council 
of  Florence  the  Western  Slavs  had  apostatized  to  Rome  and 
therefore  to  Antichrist,  and  hinted  that  the  turn  of  the  Great 
Russians  and  of  Moscow  was  coming.  Chance  arranged  the 
year  1666  as  that  of  the  final  triumph  of  Nikon's  'reforms.' 
Now  1000,  the  date  of  old  Rome's  final  apostasy,  added  to 
666,  the  apocalyptic  number  of  the  Beast,  just  made  that  date. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  Raskol  teachers  should  put  two  and 
two  together  and  teach  that  the  prophecy  of  the  Book  of  Faith 
was  being  fulfilled  before  their  eyes.  About  that  they  were  all 
agreed. 

The  only  point  left  doubtful  was  this:  in  whom  was  the 
Antichrist  to  be  recognized?  Who  was  the  Man  of  Sin? 
Was  it  Nikon  or  the  Tsar?  or  both?  It  was  not  difficult  to 
find,  among  the  martyrs  of  the  Raskol,  incarnations  of  Elias 
and  Enoch  who  according  to  ancient  prophecy  were  to  confute 
Satan  and  his  emissaries;  but  neither  Nikon  nor  the  Tsar  bore 
the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  Antichrist,  beyond  the  fact 
that  they  were  real  men  of  flesh  and  blood.  That  much  the 
Antichrist  was  to  be,  but  then  he  was  also  to  reign  for  three 
and  a  half  years ;  his  mother,  like  Christ's,  was  to  be  a  virgin, 
and  even  the  traits  of  his  personal  appearance  were  prescribed 
in  old  prophecies.  In  some  ancient  documents,  for  example, 
the  picture  of  St.  Paul  in  the  Acts  of  Thekla  was  adopted 
unchanged  as  that  of  Antichrist  —  an  indication  of  a  Judaizing 
source  hostile  to  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  An  Elder  of  the 
Raskol,  Abraham,  set  about  to  prove  that  Nikon  was  Anti- 
christ, with  the  aid  of  passages  from  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  and 
from  Hippolytus'  tract  on  the  subject;  but  his  arguments  did 
not  please  everybody,  and  Awakum  more  modestly  pretended 
that  Nikon  was  only  the  Precursor  of  Antichrist,  for  as  Christ 
had  a  precursor  in  John  the  Baptist,  so  it  was  necessary  for  his 
antitype  to  have  one. 

Theodore  the  deacon  broached  a  third  view  to  the  effect  that 
Antichrist  was  no  other  than  Satan  himself,  an  invisible  spirit 
who  issues  from  the  abyss  at  the  end  of  a  thousand  years  to 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  97 

corrupt  Rome  with  heresy  and  Lithuania  with  apostasy.  In 
1666  this  serpent  entered  into  his  two  chosen  vessels,  the  Tsar 
and  Nikon.  Thus  there  came  into  being  a  counter  Trinity  of 
serpent,  beast  and  lying  prophet.  This  theory  of  the  incar- 
nation of  Antichrist  in  these  two  men  was  a  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  doctrine  which  the  Bezpopovtsy  adopted  later  on; 
they  broached  the  view  that  the  entire  series  of  Tsars  from  1666 
onwards  were  and  are  incarnations  of  the  Evil  One.  Anti- 
christ to  their  imagination  is  rather  an  ideal  of  evil,  a  tendency 
that  makes  for  Hell  rather  than  Heaven,  than  a  real  person. 
The  excellent  Ivanovski  sets  out  arduously  to  overthrow  these 
old  world  opinions  and  argues  seriously  that  Antichrist  when 
he  appears  will  be  a  circumcized  Jew  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  of 
miraculous  birth,  etc.  in  the  same  spirit  as  is  found  in  pseudo- 
Hippolytus,  in  John  of  Damascus,  and  in  Andrew  of  Caesarea's 
Commentary  on  the  Apocalypse. 

The  mediaeval  Cathars  were  on  rather  safer  ground  when 
imder  stress  of  Papal  persecution  they  argued  that  this  world  is 
already  Hell,  so  that  we  need  not  wait  for  another  existence  in 
order  to  experience  its  tortures.  For  them  as  for  the  Raskol 
the  government  of  Kings  and  princes  was  a  manifestation  of 
the  power  of  Satan.  The  regime  of  persecution  under  which 
they  groaned  was  hardly  worse  than  that  which  until  yesterday 
existed  in  Russia.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  the 
Raskol  thought  of  the  Russian  Revolution.  Did  they  see  in 
the  deposition  of  the  Tsar  an  end  put  to  the  reign  of  Antichrist? 
Will  they  be  grievously  disappointed  if  the  end  of  the  world 
and  the  last  great  assize  fails  to  ensue?  Intellectual  progress 
had  undermined  for  many  of  them  these  grotesque  beliefs, 
but  the  war  may  have  revived  them.  If  there  were  any 
Cathars  left  to-day  they  might  justly  hail  it  as  a  confirmation 
of  their  beliefs. 

Excommunicated  by  the  Council  of  1667  the  Raskolniks  ^ 
resolved  to  hold  no  more  relations  with  the  dominant  chiu-ch. 
"It  behoves  us,"  they  said,  "as  orthodox  Christians  not  to 
accept  from  the  adherents  of  Nikon  either  benediction,  or 
ceremonies,  or  baptism,  or  prayers,  not  to  pray  with  them 

1  Material  for  the  History  of  Raskol,  t.  5,  pp.  217  foil,  and  231  foil. 


98  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

either  in  Church  or  in  private,  not  to  read  their  heretical  books 
nor  follow  their  heretical  chantings."  The  Cathars  of  Europe 
pronounced  the  prayers  of  the  Roman  Church  to  be  magis 
execrabilis  quam  impetrabilis,  ''worthy  rather  of  execration 
than  of  being  asked  for  " ;  the  Raskolniks  regarded  the  devotions 
of  the  Holy  Russian  Church  in  exactly  the  same  way. 

But  in  an  age  of  fierce  and  searching  persecution  it  was 
difficult  to  carry  out  a  program  of  complete  and  unconditional 
abstention;  Avvakum  therefore  drew  up  rules  by  observing 
which  the  dissidents  might  as  far  as  possible  keep  themselves 
uncontaminated  by  Nikonian  rites.  "If  they  drag  you  into 
Church,  then,"  so  he  wrote,  "whisper  your  prayer  to  Isus"; 
They  objected,  it  may  be  remembered,  to  the  substitution  in 
the  Service-books  of  the  correcter  spelling  lesus  for  Isus.  "On 
no  account,"  continues  Awakum,  "join  in  the  singing;  nor 
salute  the  Saviour's  image  along  with  the  rest,  but  so  soon  as 
the  Nikonians  cease  to  pray,  then  make  your  own  prostration. 
Whenever  on  a  feast  day  the  Pope  comes  to  your  house  with 
cross  and  holy  water  and  wants  to  sprinkle  your  home,  follow 
him  round  and  sweep  it  out  with  a  broom."  One  recalls  the 
way  in  which  on  certain  holy  days  the  Greek  islanders  sweep 
the  evil  spirits  out  of  their  houses  crying  e^w  Kape^,  'out  with 
the  unclean  ghosts.'  "Tell  your  children,"  he  continues,  "to 
liide  away  from  him  behind  the  stove,  but  go  forward  yom'self 
and  your  wife  and  give  him  a  drink  and  say:  '  We  don't  deserve 
to  be  blessed.'  He  begins  to  sprinkle  about,  but  get  him  into 
a  corner,  give  him  another  drink,  and  tip  him  a  coin  or  two. 
Your  \N  ife  can  go  about  her  household  affairs  and  say :  '  I  have 
no  time.  You've  a  wife  of  your  own,  father,  and  can  under- 
stand how  busy  I  am.'  If  they  haul  you  off  to  make  your 
confession  to  one  of  Nikon's  priests,  talk  rubbish  to  him.  But 
any  one  who  takes  the  Sacrament  in  an  orthodox  church,  even 
involuntarily,  must  do  six  months'  penance,  must  not  communi- 
cate with  the  faithful,  but  weep  for  his  sins."  Avvakum  Uke- 
wise  imposed  penance  on  anyone  who  even  in  mockery  crossed 
himself  with  three  fingers.  By  such  devices  he  trusted  to 
keep  alive  the  spuit  of  the  Raskol,  and  at  the  same  time  ward 
off  persecution.     In  the  churches  the  ikons  of  ancient  saints 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  SCHISM  99 

might  be  venerated,  but  only  after  the  congregation  had  left 
the  church. 

It  is  pathetic  to  observe  that  the  dissidents  cherished  as  long 
as  they  could  the  behef  that  the  Tsar  was  the  victim  of  fraud 
and  had  been  deceived  by  Nikon.  They  continued  for  long 
to  think  that  he  had  only  to  be  undeceived,  and  continued  to 
address  petitions  to  him  ^  pleading  their  cause.  The  dismissal 
of  Nikon  and  the  favour  shewn  to  Awakum  ^  by  members  of 
the  Royal  Family,  Uke  Fedosia  Prokopievna  Morozova  and 
Eudokia  Urusova,  encouraged  them  to  beseech  their  Sovereign 
to  restore  the  old  piety,  to  abohsh  the  use  of  the  three  fingers 
which  was  the  sign  of  Antichrist,  to  let  them  retain  the  old 
books.  It  was  only  gradually  that  the  fire  of  persecution 
burned  into  their  souls  the  conviction  that  the  Tsar  was  him- 
self the  Antichrist.  At  first,  accordingly,  the  tone  of  their 
petitions  was  loyal  and  humble.  They  approached  their 
hegelord  in  tears,  praised  his  piety,  termed  him  a  child  of  hght, 
a  son  of  the  resurrection.  But  presently  they  began  to  hint 
at  impending  calamities, —  a  menace  to  which  then  as  now  the 
Russian  despot  was  singularly  susceptible;  they  even  invoked 
against  him  the  judgment  of  Christ.  Nikon,  so  Awakum 
warned  him,  had  slain  his  soul  and  he  would  answer  for  it  in 
the  great  assize.  He  had  given  ear  to  the  flatterers  of  this 
world,  the  Nikonian  doctors  to  wit,  wrote  Abraham,  and  tlie 
consequences  would  be  war  and  discord.  Terrible  dreams,  as 
always  in  such  times,  were  in  fashion.  Awakum  at  last  wrote 
to  the  Tsar  that  he  had  in  a  vision  beheld  a  gaping  wound  in 
his  back  and  belly;  and  after  the  Tsar's  death  he  wrote  in 
1681  and  informed  his  son  Theodor  or  Fedor  that  he  had  been 
vouchsafed  a  vision  of  his  father  in  the  torments  of  Hell. 
The  Tsar's  answer  was  to  condenm  the  writer  to  the  stake  along 
with  his  three  companions,  Lazar,  Epiphan  and  Nikiphor. 
Awakum  died  crossing  himself  with  two  fingers  and  consoling 
his  friends  as  the  flames  rose  and  encircled  them. 

^  Mat.  for  Hist,  of  Raskol,  vols.  3-7. 
*  Russk.  Viestnik,  1865,  Sept.,  p.  33. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  DISPERSION 

The  death  in  1656  of  Paul  of  Kolomna,  the  only  bishop  who 
had  joined  the  movement,  had  left  the  seceders  without 
priests  and  spht  the  movement  into  two  wings,  called  Popovtsy 
or  Bezpopovtsy  according  as  they  fell  back  on  the  use  of  priests 
who  came  over  to  them  from  Nikon's  heresy  or  made  up  their 
mind  to  dispense  with  priests  altogether.  The  Popovtsy  can 
be  taken  first. 

Th£  Settlements  of  the  Popovtsy 

The  Popovtsy  were  a  more  united  body  than  the  priestless, 
and  as  with  the  aid  of  runaway  orthodox  popes  they  merely 
continued  the  old  orthodoxy,  there  was  nothing  except  the 
need  of  hiding  from  the  Government  to  cause  scissions  among 
them,  but  they  were  widely  dispersed. 

In  Nizhegorod  their  earhest  leaders  were  contemporaries 
of  Nikon,  the  hieromonachus  Abraam,  the  monk  Ephrem 
Potemkin,  the  Elder  Sergius.  They  built  the  Kerzhen  settle- 
ments among  the  forests  of  the  Balakhnovski  district,  which 
were  called  after  the  Elder  Onuphrius,  who  was  their  prior 
in  1690.  Onuphrius  inherited  the  writings  of  Awakum  and 
these  became  for  the  Popovtsy  what  the  writings  of  Luther 
are  or  were  for  the  Lutheran  church.  This  however,  did  not 
prevent  microscopic  dogmatic  errors  being  detected  in  them 
about  Christ's  descent  into  Hell,  which  almost  led  to  schisms. 
Onuphrius'  followers  were  numerous  early  in  the  18th  century 
among  the  forests  of  Bryn  in  the  Kaluga  government  and  in 
the  see  of  Rostov.  Awakum  at  first  had  insisted  on  the  rebap- 
tism  of  Nikonian  converts,  but  his  followers,  when  they  found 
themselves  dependent  on  fugitive  priests  of  the  dominant 
confession  relaxed  their  severity.  In  Nizhegorod  and  the 
surroimding  district  3000  followers  of  Awakum  burned  them- 
selves ahve  early  in  the  movement,  and  many  more  starved 
themselves  to  death  to  avoid  the  rack  and  the  glaive. 

Other  Popovetsy  settlements  were  organized  on  the  Don  and 

101 


102  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  Kuban  rivers,  by  the  Elders  Job  and  Dositheus,  who  also 
founded  the  monasteries  of  Rakov  and  Nikolski  in  the  district 
of  Tver.  A  third  monastery,  the  Lygovski,  was  founded  as 
early  as  1669  in  the  Rylsk  district  in  the  Kursk  government  by 
Job,  who  was  a  Lithuanian  monk.  He  built  a  fourth  on  the 
River  Chir  in  the  Don  region  to  which  he  had  to  flee.  There 
Dositheus,  hegumen  of  Tikhvin,  consecrated  the  first  Raskol 
church  after  Job's  death  about  1683.  In  1688  the  flight 
extended  to  Astrakhan  where  Dositheus  with  the  help  of  two 
priests  Pafnutius  and  Theodosius  organized  settlements  on 
the  River  Kum  on  the  Cherkess  steppes.  Others  followed  near 
Tambov,  in  the  Crimea,  and  on  the  Terek.  In  1708,  a  rebel 
against  the  Tsar's  government  named  Ignatius  Nekrasov  after 
raiding  Saratov,  Tsaritsyn  and  Dmitrevsk,  fled  with  his  clan 
to  the  River  Kuban,  where  he  made  his  submission  to  the  Khan 
of  the  Crimea  and  founded  the  Raskol  community  known  xmder 
his  name  which  subsequently  was  settled  in  Turkish  territory. 
The  famous  rebel  Pugachev  was  also  a  Raskolnik  of  the  Don, 
and  was  assisted  in  his  exploits  by  Nekrasov  and  his  followers. 

These  active  Raskolniki  of  the  Don  and  Kuban  were  in 
regular  communication  with  conmiunities  of  Popovtzi  estab- 
lished at  Vetka  in  Poland  and  at  Starodub  in  the  Tchernigov 
Government.  The  latter  was  founded  by  Kosmas,  once  priest 
of  All  Saints  in  Moscow.  Condenmed  in  1667,  he  had  fled 
with  22  of  his  parishioners.  He  was  befriended  by  the  mihtary 
oflScer  of  Starodub,  Gabriel  Ivanov,  who  got  permission  in 
1669  from  the  Ataman  Lamak  of  Kurkub  for  Kosmas  to  settle 
on  the  River  Revna  at  Ponurov.  In  the  surrounding  forests  of 
Starodub  the  fugitives  multiphed  and  organized  four  villages, 
where  one  Stephanus,  who  had  been  ordained  before  1666, 
aided  by  his  son  Dmitri,  celebrated  Mass  and  other  rites  for 
the  inhabitants.  In  1682,  at  the  death  of  Tsar  Theodor 
Alexiev  the  regent  Sophia  ordered  the  Starodub  fugitives  to 
be  driven  back  to  their  homes.  Thereupon  Kosmas  and 
Stephanus  with  their  followers  fled  into  Poland  and  settled  at 
Vetka,  which  soon  became  a  leading  focus  of  propaganda. 

A  dispute  over  the  use  and  making  of  the  holy  chrism  led 
to  the  formation  of  a  group  called  the  Diakonovo  by  a  deacon 


THE  DISPERSION  103 

Alexander.  Its  members  continued  to  live  in  Kirzhen,  Staro- 
dub  and  other  Popovets  centres. 

When  the  Vetka  settlement  was  wrecked  by  Col.  Sytin  and 
his  five  regiments  by  order  of  the  Empress  Anna  loannovna  in 
1733^,  the  survivors  asked  permission  to  transport  their 
church  called  Pokrovski  or  of  the  Intercession  to  Starodub. 
They  took  it  down,  made  a  raft  of  the  beams  and  planks  and 
floated  it  down  the  river  Sozh  as  far  as  the  village  Svyatki, 
where  a  storm  wrecked  it  and  they  only  saved  the  Royal  door 
and  the  two  side  doors  and  four  ikons.  They  also  had  the 
ikonostasis  in  bits,  for  they  took  that  by  road.  Sytin  wanted 
to  leave  them  the  relics  of  their  four  founders  and  patron 
saints,  Joasaph,  Theodosius,  Alexander  and  Antony.  But 
near  Novgorod  Sieberski  the  Tzar's  agents  violated  the  reli- 
quaries, opened  them  and  cast  the  remains  into  the  river. 
Then,  relates  Macarius,  the  modern  orthodox  prelate  and 
historian,  ''the  victims  of  superstition  saw  in  the  coflSns  not 
incorruptible  reUcs,  but  just  a  few  old  bones.  They  smelled 
their  stench,  and  left  off  boasting  about  their  pretended  saints. 
The  coffins  were  burned"! 

The  Starodub  colony  inherited  something  of  the  old  glory 
of  Vetka  when  the  latter  after  being  again  and  again  raided 
was  finally  destroyed  in  1762-4.  It  had  been  founded,  as 
we  saw,  in  1682,  under  John  and  Peter  Alexeievich,  the  young 
Tsars.  As  many  as  17  hamlets  in  time  grew  up  amidst  the 
impenetrable  forests  of  the  region.  In  1708  when  Charles 
XII  of  Sweden,  by  reason  of  the  treason  of  Mazeppa,  invaded 
httle  Russia  and  reached  Starodub,  the  sectaries  attacked  him 
with  much  vigour.  As  a  reward  of  their  loyalty  Tsar  Peter  I 
granted  them  lands  and  certain  immunities. 

In  1775  two  laymen,  originally  of  Vetka,  who  had  settled 
in  Starodub,  broke  off  because  of  some  small  dogmatic  dispute 
and  settled  in  Chernobol  in  Poland  on  the  estates  of  the  Pan 
Khatkyevich.  Their  names  were  Nikephorus  Larion  and 
Pavel  Grigorev.  The  Suslovo  sect  of  Popovtsy  was  founded 
from  Starodub  by  one  Theodor  Suslov  who  disapproved  of 
runaway  popes  being  accepted  from  Little  Russia  where  in 
certain  places  they  accepted  baptism  by  sprinkling  only. 


104  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

But  the  two  chief  fresh  settlements  to  which  the  final  de- 
struction of  Vetka  gave  rise  were  on  the  River  Irgiz  in  Saratov 
and  in  Moscow  itself.  As  many  as  120  famiUes  settled  on  the 
Irgiz  where  now  is  situated  the  city  of  Nikolaevsk.  They 
built  shrines  and  sketes  after  the  Raskol  custom  in  the  sur- 
rounding forests,  and  in  1770  obtained  a  regular  priesthood. 
In  the  next  year  1771,  the  sect  managed  at  last  to  establish 
itself  in  some  force  in  Moscow  itself,  a  century  after  the  first 
flight  thence.  The  Priestless  sect  had  set  an  example  which 
the  Popovtsy  now  followed.  This  was  the  establishment  of  a 
hospital  for  the  sick  called  the  Kladbich  in  the  village  of 
Rogozh,  just  outside  the  capital.  Two  shrines  were  dedicated 
to  the  intercession  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  adherents  all  over 
Russia  sent  hberal  gifts  for  its  endowment.  By  1800  it  had 
several  hundred  inmates,  and  20,000  parishioners  in  Moscow. 

As  to  the  early  history  of  Popovtsys  in  Siberia  few  data  are 
preserved,  but  entire  villages  fled  thither  at  an  early  date  with 
their  priests,  and  took  refuge  in  the  regions  where  iron  and 
gold  were  mined.  In  1722  ukases  were  issued  against  further 
flights  thither,  and  enacting  penalties  against  priests  of  the 
orthodox  church  who  should  join  them.  Nevertheless  their 
colonies  were  numerous,  and  Ekaterinburg  became  their 
centre.  Many  rich  merchants  and  citizens  there  belonged  to 
the  sect,  which  obtained  popes  from  Irgiz.  As  early  as  1800, 
there  were  more  than  150,000  Popovtsys  in  the  governments 
of  Orenburg,  Perm  and  Tobolsk,  and  in  Ekaterinburg  they  had 
a  church  built  of  stone. 

Ivanovski,  dweUing  on  the  above  facts,  strives  to  shew  that 
the  dissidents  were  not  punished  on  account  of  their  religious 
opinions,  but  for  opposing  the  Tsar's  Government,  as  if  such 
opposition  itself  needed  no  explanation.  A  modern  historian 
is  astonished  rather  than  the  reverse,  that  so  slight  resistance 
was  shewn  throughout  to  the  centraUzing  pohcy  of  Moscow. 
Had  the  Raskolniks  been  Quakers  they  could  hardly  have 
shown  less.  In  contrast  with  the  Huguenots  of  France,  the 
Protestants  of  the  Netherlands,  the  Roundheads  of  England, 
even  with  the  Anabaptists  of  the  continent,  they  were  emi- 


THE  DISPERSION  105 

nently  peaceful  people,  inspired  with  the  spirit  of  a  Tolstoy 
rather  than  of  a  John  of  Leiden.  In  the  few  cases  Ivanovski 
enumerates  of  their  offering  resistance,  one  discerns, —  what 
Macarius  equally  admits, —  that  they  were  the  assailed  and 
not  the  assailants.  Thus  he  describes  their  "attack"  upon 
the  Paleostrovski  Monastery  in  Pomorye,  where  they  seized 
the  treasury,  bound  the  hegumen  or  abbot,  and  fortified 
themselves  in  it.  They  only  did  so  because  here,  as  in  the 
Solovets  Convent,  they  had  the  sympathy  and  approval  of  the 
monks;  so  also  at  Pudozh,  where  two  hundred  of  them  took 
possession  of  the  church  and  held  services  in  it  of  the  ancient 
style.  In  the  case  of  the  Paleostrovski  Convent  and  of 
Pudozh,  Ivanovski's  further  narrative  confirms  this  interpreta- 
tion of  the  facts,  for  he  relates  that  in  both  places  the  Raskol- 
niks  committed  themselves  to  the  funeral  pyre  rather  than  be 
taken,  and  that  in  the  first-mentioned  of  them  they  burnt 
the  hegumen  and  the  monkish  inmates  along  with  themselves. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  brethren  were  in  sympathy  with  the 
Raskol,  for  they  could  easily  have  escaped,  if  they  had  wanted 
to.  In  general  the  dissidents  fled  into  the  forests,  just  as  did 
the  Latin  Uniats  of  the  Ruthene  province  of  Kholm  during  the 
last  thirty  years;  there,  they  fasted,  prayed,  confessed  to  one 
another  and  then  perished  of  hunger,  fully  persuaded  that  the 
end  of  the  world  w^as  at  hand.  They  even  dug  their  own 
graves  and  lay  down  in  ditches,  momentarily  expecting  the 
last  trump  to  strike  their  ears,  now  that  Antichrist  was  come. 

The  Search  for  Priests 

The  Russian  Orthodox  Church,  from  which  the  Raskolniks 
of  1667  were  driven,  possessed,  hke  the  other  great  churches 
of  the  East  and  West,  a  threefold  hierarchy  of  bishop,  priest 
and  deacon;  and  the  chief  external  difference  which  has  for 
centuries  separated  the  Eastern  Churches,  not  only  those 
which  arrogate  to  themselves  the  title  of  orthodox,  but  the 
Monophysite  Christianity  of  Armenia,  Egypt  and  Abyssinia, 
and  still  older  Nestorianism,  is  one  of  discipline.  In  the  East 
the  Parish  Priest,  the  Papa  or  Pope,  must  be  a  married  man, 
though,  if  his  wife  dies,  he  cannot  take  a  second.     In  the  West 


106  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

ever  since  the  age  of  Hildebrand,  if  not  earlier,  the  parish 
clergy  are  celibate,  and  have  taken  in  effect  not  only  the  ordi- 
nary vows  of  ordination,  but  monkish  vows  as  well,  though 
they  are  known  as  secular  clergy  in  opposition  to  the  Regulars 
who  Uve  under  a  monastic  rule.  In  the  East,  in  strong  con- 
trast to  the  parish  clergy,  the  bishops  or  'higher  clergy'  are 
monks,  usually  of  St.  Basil's  rule,  and  have  all  at  one  time  or 
another  been  inmates  of  a  monastery. 

In  both  East  and  West,  the  priest  alone  can  administer  the 
Sacraments,  and  to  that  effect  can  only  be  ordained  by  the 
laying  on  him  of  a  bishop's  hands. 

In  1667  the  Russian  seceders  were  faced  with  the  difficulty 
that  the  entire  body  of  Russian  bishops  submitted  to  the 
Government,  very  much  as  early  in  the  English  Reformation 
the  entire  bench  of  bishops,  with  one  or  two  honourable  excep- 
tions, submitted  with  indecent  haste  to  the  decrees  of  Henry 
VIII.  The  difficulty  was  even  greater  in  the  Russian  Church 
than  in  the  EngUsh,  because  the  myron  or  holy  chrism,  used 
for  various  sacramental  acts  of  unction,  can  only  be  consecrated 
on  Thursday  in  Easter  Week  by  a  Patriarch.  Then  again 
as  the  pope  or  priest  could  only  be  ordained  by  a  bishop,  and 
as  no  pope  is  immortal,  the  time  was  boimd  to  come  when  the 
seceding  clergy  would  be  as  extinct  as  the  dodo  and  none  left 
to  administer  the  sacraments.  As  early  as  1681  the  Raskol 
teacher  Awakum  wrote  to  the  Tsar  Theodore  that  "their 
patriarchate  was  in  ruins,  their  priesthood  decayed,  and  their 
entire  clergy  moribund."  Of  dire  need  he  had  to  counsel  his 
followers  to  follow  the  precept  of  the  Apostle  James,  and  dis- 
pensing with  the  services  of  a  priest,  confess  to  one  another 
and  repent  before  God.  They  might  communicate  in  the 
reserved  host,  without  a  priest  being  present,  and  for  the  pur- 
pose might  carry  it  about  with  them  —  a  practice  for  which 
they  might,  had  they  known  of  it,  have  found  a  precedent  in 
the  Church  of  Africa  in  the  days  of  Tertulhan.  Until  the 
death  of  the  Tsar  Alexis  they  procured  resei-ved  hosts  in  Pomor 
from  the  Solovets  Convent.  The  hegumen  Dositheus  built  a 
church  in  1686  at  Chir  with  pre-Nikonian  Antiminsia  and 
accumulated  a   quantity  of  reserved  hosts  for   distribution 


THE  DISPERSION  107 

among  Old  believers.  But  how  could  they  hope  to  obtam  on 
all  occasions  even  a  reserved  host?  ^ 

In  the  presence  of  this  difficulty  Awakum  sanctioned  re- 
course to  the  ministration  even  of  priests  whose  ordination 
dated  from  after  the  year  1667,  and  was  therefore  heretical. 
But  another  Raskol  teacher,  Theodor  the  deacon,  altogether 
rejected  the  ministration  of  heretically  ordained  priests  and 
would  hear  of  none  ordained  later  than  1666.  On  those  who 
took  up  this  attitude  the  situation  was  bound  to  press  with  ever 
increasing  weight,  and  in  the  course  of  a  generation  to  become 
irremediable;  at  first  it  was  in  some  degree  masked  by  the 
belief  that  Antichrist  was  come  and  the  end  of  the  world  was 
at  hand,  but  this  beUef  began  to  fade  or  replace  itself  with 
the  milder  theory  that  Antichrist  was  a  tendency  that  makes 
for  evil. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  need  of  a  hierarchy  would  be  met 
in  different  ways  according  to  circumstances,  and  Ivanovski 
points  out  that  the  North  of  Russia,  which  was  densely  wooded, 
sparsely  populated,  and  contained  few  chm-ches  and  fewer 
roads,  was  more  favourable  than  other  regions  to  the  growth 
of  Bezpopovets  usage,  i.  e.  of  those  who,  making  a  virtue  of 
necessity,  resigned  themselves  to  dispensing  altogether  with 
a  hierarchy  and  to  getting  along  with  no  rites  and  sacraments 
at  all,  or  at  most  with  those  which  according  to  ancient  ec- 
clesiastical usage  laymen  can  in  cases  of  dire  need  themselves 
discharge,  for  example  baptism,  confession,  burial  (which  a 
monk  can  canonically  perform),  the  Hours,  Te  Deums  and 
Pannychidia  or  all  night  long  vigils.  In  such  rites  the  parts 
reserved  to  priests  could  be  omitted.  Such  was  the  solution 
adopted  by  the  settlers  on  the  Vyg,  and  their  example  was  soon 
copied  far  and  wide. 

In  all  this  the  Raskol  leaders  had  no  thought  of  depreciating 
the  Sacraments  of  the  Church  or  of  minimising  the  importance 

'  Miliukov  (Outlines,  pt.  2,  p.  56)  states  that  the  last  of  the  pre-Nikonian 
popes  Theodosius,  having  escaped  from  persecution,  led  a  group  of  Old  believers 
from  the  forests  of  Kirzhen  to  Vetka  in  the  Polish  marches,  and  on  the  way  pre- 
pared in  a  ruined  church  at  Kaluga  a  number  of  reserved  hosts,  which  later  on 
made  the  reputation  for  a  time  of  Vetka,  where  in  1695  he  consecrated  a  church, 
the  only  one  after  the  destruction  in  1688  of  that  at  Chir. 


108  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  a  hierarchy.  They  had  nothing  in  common  with  Protestants 
who  understand  that  Sacraments  whether  pagan  or  Christian 
are  magis  opinione  quam  re,  and  so  have  learned  the  secret  of 
each  beUever  being  his  own  priest.  It  was  indeed  all  the  other 
way  with  the  Raskol;  through  no  fault  of  their  own  they  found 
themselves  marooned  without  a  priesthood,  yet  thoroughly 
convinced  of  its  need  and  efficacy  for  salvation. 

The  so-called  Pomorian  Responses  of  the  year  1720  were  the 
first  official  recognition  of  the  Bezpopovski  or  No  Priesthood 
position.  It  rested  on  the  distinction  between  sacraments 
universally  necessary  to  salvation,  and  sacraments  not  so 
necessary;  to  the  former  class  belong  baptism,  repentance  and 
communion;  to  the  latter  all  the  rest.  It  was  decided  that  in 
case  of  need  a  Church  could  do  without  the  sacraments  of 
unction  with  holy  Chrism,  of  marriage,  of  holy  orders.  There 
were,  as  remarked  above,  precedents  for  the  celebration  of  the 
sacraments  of  baptism  and  penitence  by  laymen,  the  appU- 
cabihty  of  which  to  the  case  of  the  Raskol  Ivanovski  somewhat 
ineptly  disputes;  but  how  dispense  with  a  priest  in  the  Com- 
munion? It  was  decided  in  the  Responses  that  it  was  enough 
to  use  a  reserved  host  and  substitute  for  the  presence  of  the 
priest  an  ardent  desire  for  Communion;  they  might  even 
content  themselves  altogether  with  a  "spiritual  Conmiunion."^ 
Thus  was  laid  by  urgent  need  and  force  of  circumstances  the 
basis  among  these  poor  people  for  a  worship  of  God  in  spirit 
and  truth  alone. 

In  their  Responses  of  1720  the  Raskol  teachers  furthermore 
urged  that  the  advent  of  Antichrist  had  exterminated  both 
the  priesthood  and  the  divine  sacrifice,  that  under  the  circum- 
stances the  individual  Christian  becomes  his  own  priest.  In 
such  an  exceptional  era  it  is  legitimate,  they  argued,  for  laymen 
to  conduct  the  sacraments  of  baptism  and  confession  and  to 
celebrate  simdry  rites.  They  also  claimed  the  right  to  re- 
baptize  converts  from  the  orthodox  church,  a  pretension 
somewhat  galling  to  the  latter. 

The  Old  believers  of  Starodub,  a  portion  of  which  later  on 
removed  to  Vetka,  had,  when  they  first  fled  from  Moscow, 

1  Subbotin,  Materials  Vol.  V,  p.  224,  230;  VI,  p.  60-79,  310-312. 


THE  DISPERSION  109 

priests  among  them  who  had  been  ordained  before  the  schism ; 
thus  first  Cosmas  and  after  him  Stephan  ministered  to  them. 
These  two  were  followed  by  Joasaph,  a  black  or  monkish  pope, 
whose  baptism  was  anterior  to  1667,  but  as  to  whose  ordina- 
tion there  were  doubts  whether  it  was  not  posterior.  After 
him  Theodosius,  who  was  ordained  by  Joasaph's  predecessor, 
supphed  their  needs,  and  under  his  guidance  they  built  a 
church,  and  so  were  able  for  the  first  time  to  conduct  the  divine 
liturgy.  As  long  as  they  had  at  their  disposal  priests  of  the 
old  ordination,  such  conmiunities  were  incHned  to  reject  those 
of  the  new;  but  in  time,  as  the  stock  of  old  priests  more  and 
more  exhausted  itself,  they  had  to  face  the  same  problem  which 
the  Bezpopovtsy  settled  in  the  negative;  and  they  settled  it 
in  the  coimter-sense.  They  felt  they  must  have  priests  at 
any  cost,  and  decided  to  adopt  those  of  the  new  order  in 
case  they  could  be  persuaded  to  join  them  and  were  wilUng 
to  use  the  rites  they  considered  ancient.  The  settlers  on  the 
Don,  at  Kerzhen  and  in  general  those  of  middle  and  Southern 
Russia,  adopted  the  same  solution.  From  the  circumstance 
of  their  adopting  fugitive  or  runaway  priests  the  sect  came  to 
be  known  as  Begstvuiushchiye,  sometimes  as  Oratorians  or 
Tchasovennyie,  the  latter  term  implying  that  (except  in  Vetka 
or  Starodub,  and  later  on  in  Irgiz  and  the  cemetery  of  Rogozh) 
they  had  no  churches,  but  only  chapels  or  oratories,  proseuchai 
as  the  Greek  Jews  called  of  old  their  synagogues. 

By  accepting  the  ministration  of  runaway  popes  the  Popovtsy 
sect  exposed  themselves  to  a  crossfire  of  criticism  both  from 
the  orthodox  and  from  the  priestless  sect ;  for  both  these  parties 
urged  against  such  a  compromise  that  it  mined  the  position 
the  Popovtsy  had  in  1666  taken  up,  when  they  abandoned  the 
Nikonian  Church  as  an  heretical  body.  If  it  was  heretical, 
how  could  its  baptisms  and  ordinations  also  not  be  heretical? 
How  again,  urged  Ivan  Alexev,  a  doctor  of  the  priestless 
sect,  can  you  retain  an  order  of  priests,  if  you  have  no  bishops? 
It  was  in  vain  that  the  Popovtsy  tried  to  justify  their  position 
from  early  Church  history,  pointing  out  that  the  see  of  Chal- 
cedon  at  one  time  got  on  without  a  bishop  for  thirty  years, 
that  the  see  of  Hippo  had  done  hkewise.    The  Orthodox 


no  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

replied  that  no  Church  claiming  ecumenical  authority  can 
permanently  exist  without  a  head,  and  that,  the  triple  ordi- 
nation being  indispensable  in  a  real  Church  and  the  three 
orders  indissolubly  bound  up  in  one  another,  you  cannot 
logically  have  a  clergy  without  a  bishop.  They  are  a  trunk 
without  a  head. 

The  Popovtsy  were  then  reduced  to  analogy  and  prophecy ; 
and  argued  that,  as  the  temple  fire  of  the  Jews  lay  hidden  dur- 
ing their  Babylonian  captivity  in  a  dry  well,  so  it  was  possible 
for  the  true  charismatic  gift  of  priesthood  to  lurk  in  an  hereti- 
cal medium.  There  would  have  been  something  in  this  con- 
tention, if  the  Popovtsy  had  not  repudiated  the  baptism  of  the 
Orthodox  Church;  but  baptism  is  the  portal  of  all  the  Sacra- 
ments, and  they  scrupled  not  to  rebaptize  converts  who  came 
over  to  them,  so  contravening  a  canon  of  procedure  established 
in  the  undivided  Church  as  early  as  the  third  Century. 

How  heavily  the  difficulty  weighed  upon  the  Popovtsy  is 
shewn  by  the  many  attempts  they  made  in  the  next  150  years 
to  secure  an  episcopate  for  themselves,  attempts  which  Ivanov- 
ski  relates  with  sardonic  humour.  From  the  first  the  sect 
cherished  the  belief  that  a  genuine  church  still  existed  some- 
where in  the  world,  and  their  aim  was  to  discover  it  and  link 
up  with  it.  One  is  reminded  of  the  similar  endeavours  of  the 
KngUsh  non-jurors.  Oddlj'^  enough  the  latter  entered  into 
long-drawn-out  negotiations  with  the  Orthodox  Russian 
Church,  which  the  curious  will  read  in  Monsignor  Louis  Petit's 
Appendix  to  the  new  edition  of  Mansi's  concilia.  If  the  non- 
jurors had  been  better  informed  they  might,  when  the  Russian 
Government  abruptly  and  in  an  Erastian  spirit  repudiated 
them  on  discovering  that  they  were  ranged  in  opposition  to 
the  English  monarchy,  have  opened  negotiations  with  the 
Popovtsy  whose  case  strikingly  resembled  their  own,  with  the 
exception,  however,  that  the  non-jurors,  had  bishops  of  their 
own.     They  could  have  supphed  the  Raskolniks  with  bishops. 

One  of  the  earliest  doctors  of  the  Russian  sect,  the  deacon 
Theodor,  was  convinced  that  a  real  Christian  community 
survived  in  Jerusalem,  preserving  the  use  of  two  fingers  in 
blessing,  the  double  Alleluia  and  other  peculiarities  dear  to  the 


THE  DISPERSION  111 

Raskol.  Others  among  their  teachers  held  that  a  genuine 
piety  survived  in  Antioch,  and  that  the  Patriarch  Macarius 
of  that  see  did  not  really  represent  the  faithful  there  when 
he  came  to  Moscow  and  prostrated  himself  before  Nikon  and 
the  Tsar.  It  will  be  remembered  that  he  died  on  his  way 
back,  and  in  this  the  Raskol  discerned  the  finger  of  God. 

In  the  XVIIIth  century  a  doctor  of  the  rival  and  priestless 
sect  came  to  their  aid.  This  was  Mark,  an  inmate  of  the 
Topozer  Skete  in  the  Kemski  district  of  the  Archangel  Govern- 
ment. He  adduced  the  evidence  of  a  traveller  to  Japan  to 
the  efifect  that  in  Belovod  in  that  land  there  existed  a  church 
subject  to  Antioch  and  endued  with  all  charismatic  gifts,  with  a 
patriarch  of  its  own,  179  places  of  worship  and  four  metropoli- 
tans. This  tale  was  an  echo  of  the  Latin  Christianity  im- 
planted in  Japan  in  1549  by  St.  Francis  Xavier.  It  enjoyed 
a  vigorous  life,  and  by  the  end  of  the  century  numbered  250 
churches,  and  nearly  half  a  million  adherents;  but  the  Japan- 
ese had  extinguished  it  with  horrible  cruelty  a  hundred  years 
before  its  echoes  reached  the  ears  of  Mark,  and  when  he  ^vrote 
its  martyrs  were  already  being  enrolled  in  the  Roman  calendar. 
There  is  a  strange  irony  in  the  Russian  Raskol  teacher  imagin- 
ing that  ancient  piety  was  to  be  restored  from  such  a  quarter. 

Still  more  romantic  was  another  legend  which  in  the  early 
years  of  the  XVIIIth  Century  floated  before  the  eyes  of  these 
desolate  sectaries  in  quest  of  a  bishop.  There  was  a  sub- 
terranean Church  in  the  city  of  Kitezh  on  the  bank  of  Lake 
Svetloyar.  Kitezh  was  a  town  in  Suzdal  which  disappeared 
from  human  ken  on  the  approach  of  the  conqueror  Batus.^ 
It  was  to  abide  invisible  until  the  end  of  the  world,  and  it 
contained  churches  and  monasteries  and  a  large  population. 
Of  a  summer's  evening  the  dwellers  on  the  lake  could  hear 
beneath  its  waters  the  sound  of  the  Kitezh  bells;  and  a  letter 
was  circulated  addressed  to  his  father  by  a  son  who  Uved  below. 
It  told  how  happy  he  was  in  a  holy  monastery,  hidden  from 
human  eye,  and  besought  the  habitants  of  this  dull  skyward 

'  Grandson  of  Chingis  Khan  of  the  Golden  horde  and  hero  of  many  Russian 
legends.  The  Russian  Encyclopedia  locates  the  legendary  site  of  Kitezh  near 
Semenov  in  the  Nizhigorod  Government. 


112  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

earth  not  to  repine  nor  say  mass  for  his  soul;  for  he  was  not 
dead,  but  alive  in  a  realm,  terrestrial  indeed,  but  blest  with  all 
the  joys  of  happy  repose,  replete  with  delights,  not  gross  and 
carnal,  but  spiritual  and  refined. 

Japan,  however,  was  far  away,  and  Kitezh  was  a  dream,  and 
it  was  hopeless  to  try  to  win  over  to  themselves  a  bishop  of  the 
orthodox  church,  for  as  we  saw  Russian  bishops  were  not  of  the 
stuff  of  which  martyrs  are  made.  The  only  hope  was  to  secure 
one  across  the  frontiers,  and  as  early  as  1730  they  besought  the 
bishop  of  Jassy,  the  metropohtan  Antony,  to  ordain  as  their 
bishop  a  certain  monk  of  Vetka  named  Pavel  or  Paul;  but  the 
latter  could  not  conscientiously  subscribe  to  the  twelve  tenets 
imposed  by  the  Metropohtan,  says  the  Bezpopovets  writer 
Ivan  Alexev.  Jona  Kurnos,  a  Popovets  author,  relates  that 
the  same  community  made  fresh  overtures  to  Jassy  the  next 
year,  when  the  Pope  Basil  of  Kazan,  who  in  religion  bore  the 
name  Barlaam,  was  dispatched  thither  for  ordination.  But 
this  scheme  bore  no  more  fruit  than  the  former. 

EpiphaniuSy  the  First  Raskol  Bishop 

Epiphanius  was  a  monk  of  the  Kozelski  monastery  in  the 
see  of  Kiev,  where  he  had  relations,  to  whom  he  ever  shewed 
kindness  and  consideration.  At  Kiev  he  was  in  good  repute 
with  the  Archbishop  Varlaam  Vanatovich,  who  according  to 
one  account  took  him  as  his  lay-brother  and  afterwards  made 
him  hegumen  of  the  Kozelski  monastery;  according  to  another 
he  was  steward  of  the  archbishop's  household.  From  the 
Kozel  treasury,  however,  he  was  accused  of  having  stolen  240 
roubles,  and  to  escape  the  consequences  forged  himself  a  pass- 
port. Armed  also  with  a  forged  seal  of  the  Archbishop  of  Kiev 
as  well  as  with  another  genuine  one  of  the  metropohtan  of 
Lvov  or  Lemberg  which  he  found  in  the  church  archives  of 
Kiev,  he  now  crossed  the  frontier  and  passed  himself  off 
as  an  archpriest  in  partihus, —  an  easy  thing  to  do,  as  there 
were  many  such  nomads  in  Podoha  and  Gahcia,  men  who 
without  belonging  to  any  particular  see  undertook  the  task  of 
ministering  to  the  Uniats  of  Poland.     He  also  bore  with  him 


THE  DISPERSION  113 

an  apocryphal  letter  purporting  to  be  from  the  hand  of  the 
archbishop  of  Kiev  and  to  represent  the  clergy  of  the  Ukraine. 
This  complained  of  a  recent  act  of  the  Moscow  Synod  which 
deprived  the  metropoUtan  of  Kiev  of  his  old  grade  and  dig- 
nity, and  besought  the  metropoUtan  of  Jassy  to  confer  on 
Epiphanius  episcopal  orders.  To  this  letter  was  attached  the 
supposititious  seal  he  had  cut  out.  As  it  was  necessary  by 
canon  law  for  a  candidate  for  episcopal  ordination  to  bear  a 
letter  from  the  faithful  of  the  see  he  was  to  occupy,  Epiphanius 
had  forged  one  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  Chigirin  in 
the  Ukraine.  The  metropoUtan  of  Jassy  fell  into  the  trap  and 
ordained  him  July  22,  1724.  Instead,  however,  of  repairing 
to  his  see  Epiphanius  betook  himself  to  other  parts  of  the 
Ukraine,  where  at  the  request  of  the  Raskolniks  he  ordained 
for  them  fourteen  priests  and  several  deacons.  But  he  did  not 
long  enjoy  episcopal  freedom,  for  the  Russian  Government 
pounced  on  him,  and  the  Senate  sentenced  him  May  6,  1727, 
at  the  end  of  Catharine's  reign  to  seclusion  for  Ufe  in  the 
Solo  vets  Convent.  Thence  he  escaped  after  nearly  three 
years  (in  1729)  in  the  disguise  of  a  pilgrim,  but  was  twice 
rearrested  and  was  sent  to  Moscow  in  November  1731.  There 
he  foregathered  with  the  Old  beUevers  who  offered  to  smuggle 
him  across  the  frontier  to  their  settlement  at  Vetka  in  Poland. 
This  was  in  1733.  He  had  been  previously  condemned  first 
to  seclusion  in  Solovets  as  a  monk,  and  then  later  on  to  be 
unfrocked  and  sent  to  Siberia. 

Ivanovski  contends  that  he  had  scant  regard  for  the  sect, 
and  knew  that  he  was  betraying  the  orthodox  church,  yet 
yielded  to  their  importunities  because  he  yearned  for  rest  and 
freedom  in  Poland.  The  doubts,  however,  which  he  casts  aU 
through  on  the  genuineness  of  Epiphanius'  transactions  con- 
tradict one  another  no  less  than  they  do  the  general  situation, 
as  he  depicts  it.  Why,  if  Epiphanius  was  a  convinced  adherent 
of  the  Orthodox  Church,  should  he  have  wanted  to  put  himself 
out  of  reach  of  the  Russian  Government?  Ivanovski's  arriere 
pensee  is  evident.  He  can  not  admit  that  any  genuinely 
ordained  bishop  ever  sided  with  the  Raskol.  Why  again 
should  the  sectaries  have  rescued  him  from  the  Government 


114  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

convoy  charged  to  transport  him  to  Yaroslav  and  Vologda? 
Yet  they  did  so,  and  got  him  safely  to  Vetka. 

There  it  was  established  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Popovets 
community  that  his  orders  were  genuine,  though  some  reserves 
were  made  as  to  his  baptism,  which  was  reported  to  have 
been  performed,  not  by  immersion  which  alone  they  regarded 
as  canonical,  but  by  aspersion.  Ivanovski  relates  that  they 
were  reassured  when  they  learned  that  as  a  small  boy  he  had 
been  ducked  in  play  by  his  companions.  The  apocryphal 
character  of  this  part  of  Ivanovski's  narrative  is  evidenced  by 
the  fact  that  this  incident  is  derived  from  the  life  of  St.  Athana- 
sius. 

In  August  1734  Epiphanius  was  accordingly  installed  as  their 
bishop  by  the  Old  beUevers  of  Vetka,  though  he  was  not  recog- 
nized by  all  the  Russian  congregations;  for  example  that  of 
Kerzhen  repudiated  him,  and  accused  that  of  Vetka  with  being 
victims  of  a  phantasy  offensive  to  heaven  and  Uttle  conducive 
to  salvation. 

The  new  bishop  did  not  enjoy  at  Vetka  the  peace  and  calm 
he  longed  for.  He  so  openly  displayed  his  contempt  for  the 
Raskol,  was  so  little  disposed  to  comply  with  their  rules  and 
grew  so  weary  of  their  long-drawn-out  ceremonies  and  strict 
fasts  as  to  make  himself  unpopular;  and  their  distaste  for  him, 
already  excited  by  the  doubt  about  his  baptism,  was  changed 
to  dismay  by  the  discovery  of  a  letter  written  by  him  to  his 
relatives  in  Kiev,  in  which  he  accused  his  new  congregation  of 
having  deceived  and  kidnapped  him  into  their  'cave  of  heresy.' 

Epiphanius  then  discharged  his  episcopal  functions  for  no 
more  than  eight  months,  until  April,  1735,  when  the  Tsarina 
Anna  loannovna,  profiting  by  the  weakness  of  Poland  and  the 
disturbances  that  arose  over  the  election  of  a  new  king  to  suc- 
ceed Augustus  II,  ordered  her  general  Sytin  to  make  a  descent 
on  Vetka  and  drive  the  Old  behevers  who  had  fled  thither, 
back  to  their  homes.  Epiphanius  was  hunted  back  along  with 
the  rest  and  jailed  in  Kiev;  but  shortly  afterwards  fell  ill  and 
died,  in  conmiunion,  according  to  Macarius  and  Ivanovski, 
with  the  Orthodox  Church.  The  Old  behevers,  however,  who 
were  surely  in  a  position  to  know  the  facts,  had  another  story 


THE  DISPERSION  115 

and  declared  that  he  died  a  martyr  by  the  violence  of  the 
Government,  and  in  communion  with  themselves.  That  is 
the  more  probable  account.  His  tomb  in  the  fortress  church  of 
S.  Theodosius  at  Kiev  became  a  resort  of  Old-beheving  pil- 
grims, and  many  were  called  after  his  name.  The  clergy 
ordained  by  him  never  entertained  any  doubts  as  to  the  vaUdity 
of  their  orders.  The  last  pope  consecrated  by  him  died  in 
1790,  when  there  was  still  at  Starodub  a  church  dedicated  to 
him.  Such  was  the  history  of  the  first  Raskol  bishop;  and 
in  spite  of  the  jaundiced  character  of  Macarius'  and  Ivanovski's 
narrative,  we  discern  the  fact  that  he  was  a  success. 

The  Uniat  Movement 

Ivanovski  relates  with  the  same  parti  pris  the  fortunes  of 
four  other  bishops  obtained  from  one  quarter  or  another  by 
the  Popovtsy  during  the  XVIIIth  Century.  These  need  not 
delay  us,  and  we  come  to  the  effort  made  by  one  Nicodemus,  a 
monk  of  Starodub,  to  make  good  the  want  by  sunmioning  a 
council  of  Old  behevers  at  Moscow  in  1765.  It  was  chiefly 
remarkable  because  both  sects  were  represented  at  it,  a  proof 
that  they  had  not  then  drifted  so  far  apart,  as  they  have  to-day. 
It  was  resolved  to  discuss  whether  they  could,  compatibly 
with  the  ancient  canons  of  the  Church,  appoint  a  bishop  de  suo, 
in  other  words  by  presbyteral  appointment  only.  It  is  still 
a  burning  question  to-day  whether  in  sundry  ancient  churches 
the  episcopate  had  any  other  origin,  but  of  these  deeper  prob- 
lems of  church  history  the  Raskol  knew  Uttle,  and  no  one 
apparently  questioned  the  doctrine  of  apostoUcal  succession. 
,One  of  them,  according  to  Ivanovski,  had  found  a  story  in  an 
old  chronicle  to  the  effect  that  Clement,  a  metropohtan  of 
Kiev,  had  been  created  such  behind  the  back  of  the  Greek 
patriarch  by  use  of  a  holy  relic,  to  wit  the  head  of  St.  Clement 
of  Rome, —  a  mode  of  ordination  to  which  apparently  the 
orthodox  historian  has  no  objection  provided  it  is  a  chapter 
of  bishops  who  make  such  use  of  a  reUc.  His  only  criticism 
of  the  Old  behever's  project  is  that  laymen,  not  bishops,  were 
to  work  the  miracle.  As  they  had  no  head  of  St.  Clement, 
it  was  proposed  to  use  the  hand  of  St.  Jona,  a  much  venerated 


116  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

relic  in  the  Uspenski  Church.  The  idea  of  laying  the  dead 
hand  of  a  saint  on  the  head  of  a  hving  man  for  purposes  of 
ordination  was  a  familiar  one  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the 
Armenians  were  accused  of  making  similar  use  of  the  dead 
hand  of  Gregory  the  Illuminator  which  is  among  the  relics 
of  the  patriarchal  church  at  Valarshapat.  In  1765,  however, 
the  project  fell  through  for  the  excellent  reason  that  in  order 
to  have  true  ordination  there  must  be  an  intention  to  ordain 
on  the  part  of  the  priest  who  lays  on  his  hand.  Of  every  sacra- 
mental act  such  intention  forms  a  part.  Now  who  was  to 
guarantee  such  an  intention  on  the  part  of  the  defunct  saint? 
Who  moreover  was  to  recite  the  pontifical  prayers?  Should 
it  be  a  Popovets  or  a  Bezpopovets?  A  fugitive  pope  out  of  the 
Orthodox  Church  or  a  Pomorski  elder?  Surely  too  the  dog- 
matic complexion  of  the  new  bishop  would  alter  according  as 
one  or  the  other  officiated?  We  learn  from  Ivanovski,  per- 
haps rightly,  that  the  two  parties  in  the  Council  parted  on 
terms  less  friendly  than  those  on  which  they  met,  and  he 
unkindly  suggests  that  the  project  was  a  sacrilegious  one. 

But  Nicodemus  was  not  discouraged,  and  began  to  cast 
about  for  a  patriarch  who  would  appoint  him  a  bishop.  He 
seemed  for  a  Uttle  time  to  have  discovered  one  in  the  patriarch 
of  Georgia,  Athanasius,  who  was  staying  in  Moscow  at  the 
time.  By  his  advice  Nicodemus  set  out  for  Tiflis,  but  by 
reason  of  a  war  that  was  raging  failed  to  reach  his  goal.  Better 
luck  attended  an  appUcation  to  the  patriarch  of  Antioch, 
Daniel,  who  no  doubt  was  not  disinclined  to  receive  ordination 
fees  even  from  Russian  Old  believers.  Anyhow  he  turned 
Joasaph,  one  of  the  monks  of  Starodub,  into  a  archimandrite, 
and  another  of  them,  Raphael,  into  a  bishop ;  but,  as  bad  luck 
would  have  it,  the  latter  died  on  his  way  home,  so  that  both 
the  Russian  Government  and  the  Raskol  were  cheated  out  of 
him.  Joasaph  on  reaching  Starodub  had  the  mortification  of 
finding  that  Nicodemus  was  intent  on  asking  the  Orthodox 
Russian  Synod  to  appoint  a  bishop  for  his  adherents,  and  this 
movement  ultimately  led  to  the  formation  of  a  body  of  Uniat 
Old  believers. 

An  Uniat  is  one  who  conditionally  enters  into  communion 


THE  DISPERSION  117 

with  a  Church  which  he  esteems  to  be  orthodox,  retaining  his 
own  rites  and  traditions.  The  Uniat  Ruthenes  for  example 
used  the  CyrilHc  rites  which  are  those  of  the  Russian  and 
South  Slav  Churches,  but  recognized  the  Bishop  of  Rome's 
jurisdiction  in  matters  of  faith  and  dogma.  The  Uniats  we 
are  now  to  consider  were  Old  believers,  and  were  allowed  the 
continued  use  of  the  old  service-books,  of  the  two-fingered 
blessing  and  other  pecuharities  they  set  store  by,  on  condition 
they  went  back  into  communion  with  the  Orthodox  Church. 
Macarius  and  Ivanovski,  as  is  natural,  relate  the  fortunes  of 
this  movement  at  greater  length  than  its  results  warrant, 
because  from  their  standpoint  it  was  an  act  of  resipiscence  on 
the  part  of  the  Raskol. 

In  1781  Nicodemus,  who  had  sent  Raphael  and  Joasaph  to 
Antioch,  found  himself  on  the  estate  of  a  Count  or  Graf 
Rumyantsev,  then  viceroy  or,  as  we  should  say,  lord-lieutenant 
of  Little  Russia.  The  latter,  aware  of  the  scruples  he  enter- 
tained respecting  the  ministry  of  runaway  popes  and  his 
anxiety  to  obtain  a  bishop  for  his  communion,  advised  him  to 
apply  for  one  to  the  Russian  Government  and  promised  to 
interest  the  Empress  in  his  behalf.  Nicodemus  mooted  the 
project  in  his  own  sect  of  the  Diakonovski  (p.  102)  which 
admitted  orthodox  priests  to  minister  for  them  without  insist- 
ing on  their  being  anointed  afresh  as  did  other  Popovets  groups. 
Just  then  a  certain  monk  Gerasim  Knyazev,  who  was  in  his 
confidence,  was  starting  for  Petersburg,  and  he  undertook  to 
sound  the  Holy  Synod  there  about  the  matter.  On  his  way, 
being  still  in  Moscow,  Gerasim  called  on  the  venerable  bishop 
Plato,  and,  when  he  reached  Petersburg,  on  Gabriel  the  metro- 
politan and  Innocent  archbishop  of  Pskov,  and  on  Prince 
Potemkin-Tavricheski,  who  all  three  favom-ed  the  scheme. 
Not  so  however  Nicodemus'  co-reUgionists  at  Starodub,  for 
when  he  returned  thither  a  considerable  party  of  them  were 
inclined  to  stone  him.  But  Nicodemus  persevered,  and  wrote 
to  Gabriel  and  to  Prince  Potemkin,  and  Graf  Rumyantzev- 
Zadunaiski,  whom  he  had  come  to  know,  for  their  advice. 
They  answered  him  sympathetically,  and  Nicodemus  in  1782 
went  to  the  Capital  where  Potemkin  presented  him  to  the 


118  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

broadminded  Empress  Catharine  II,  who,  touched  by  his 
appeal,  promised  her  aid.  The  result  was  that  in  1783  as 
many  as  three  thousand  ^  Old  beUevers  drew  up  a  petition  for 
reunion  and  sent  it  with  Potemkin's  and  Rumyantsev's  recom- 
mendations to  the  Synod,  while  Nicodemus  was  advised  to 
return  to  Petersburg  to  plead  his  case  in  person. 

The  conditions  proposed  by  him  were  three:  that  the  Ortho- 
dox Church  should  withdraw  the  anathemas  pronounced  in 
1666-7  against  Old  behevers,  that  the  latter  should  be  allowed 
to  conduct  their  services  from  the  old  books,  and  that  the 
Holy  Synod  should  appoint  a  bishop  or  a  chorepiscopus  and 
send  him  to  Nicodemus'  monastery,  the  Uspenski  at  Starodub, 
to  regulate  their  clergy  all  over  Russia,  to  consecrate  churches, 
and  ordain  pastors;  the  said  bishop  was  to  be  under  the  control 
of  the  Synod,  but  the  Raskolniki  were  everywhere  to  retain 
their  ancient  service  books  and  rites. 

Nicodemus'  expectations  were  not  destined  to  be  reaUzed  in 
their  entirety.  It  was  objected  that  the  canons  of  the  Russian 
as  of  any  other  Church,  forbade  the  presence  of  more  than  one 
bishop  in  a  diocese;  it  was  also  argued  that  the  institution  of 
Chorepiscopi  had  died  out,  and  that  a  bishop  presiding  over 
the  Raskol  all  over  Russia  would  be  equivalent  to  a  patriarch. 
Peter  the  great  had  done  away  with  Patriarchs.  Potemkin 
himself  after  encouraging  Nicodemus  to  make  the  demand,  no 
longer  urged  it  when  the  latter  reached  Petersburg  at  the  end  of 
1783;  and  finally  an  ukase  of  March  11,  1784,  addressed  to 
Gabriel,  merely  contained  a  license  for  the  archbishop  of 
Mohilev  to  allow  the  Old  believers  the  priests  they  desired,  but 
was  silent  about  the  grant  of  a  bishop.  Nicodemus  however 
professed  himself  satisfied,  and  went  back  to  Starodub,  where  he 
died  on  May  12,  1784,  in  communion,  according  to  Ivanovski, 
with  the  Orthodox  church. 

Four  of  his  adherents  now  journeyed  to  Petersburg  to  ask 
Gabriel  to  consecrate  Joasaph,  one  of  themselves,  and,  as  we 
have  seen  an  archimandrite,  abbot  of  the  Uspenski  convent  at 
Starodub;  but  a  year  elapsed  before  so  moderate  a  demand  was 
granted,  and  the  favour  was  coupled  with  a  requirement  that 

^  Ace.  to  Palmieri,  Chiesa  Rxtssa,  p.  452,  only  one  thousand. 


THE  DISPERSION  119 

the  villages  of  Old  believers  round  Starodub  should  be  trans- 
ferred to  Potemkin's  property  in  Novorossia.  The  truth 
was,  this  grand  seigneur  was  trying  to  exploit  the  Old  believers 
in  his  own  interest,  and,  though  they  would  not  fall  in  with  his 
schemes,  he  did  induce  Joasaph  to  become  prior  of  a  monastery 
he  had  built  in  the  new  locahty,  so  leaving  the  Uniats  of 
Starodub  without  a  clergy.  If  one  bears  in  mind  the  fact  that 
Russian  proprietors  reckoned  their  wealth  not  by  the  number 
of  their  acres,  but  of  their  serfs,  one  understands  the  anxiety 
of  Potemkin  to  acquire  such  valuable  colonists  for  his  new 
estates. 

The  Starodub  uniats  made  a  despairing  appeal  to  Gabriel 
to  influence  Ambrose  to  ordain  them  a  priest,  but  he  was 
afraid  of  Potemkin  and  presently  sent  them  one  named  Andrew 
loannov  Zhuravlev,  a  missionary  appointed  by  the  Orthodox 
Authorities  to  convert  the  Raskol  and  a  frank  enemy  of  every- 
thing connected  with  them.  A  renegade  himself,  ''he  knew 
from  experience  how  most  successfully  to  influence  the  hearts 
of  Raskolniki." 

Nevertheless  he  was  well  received  when  he  first  arrived  in 
1788 ;  but  he  immediately  set  himself  with  the  help  of  the  armed 
forces  of  the  Government  to  oust  the  majority  of  the  Old  believ- 
ers of  Starodub,  who  had  not  fallen  in  with  Nicodemus'  Uniat 
movement,  from  their  churches  and  other  buildings,  in  particu- 
lar from  their  Pokrovski  Church  and  monastery.  The  Old 
beUevers,  in  a  work  entitled  the  Synaxary,  i.e.  the  Church 
hagiography  embeUished  with  records  of  their  own  saints  who 
had  suffered  for  the  truth  as  they  understood  it  and  answering 
to  Foxe's  Book  of  Martyrs,  described  the  violence,  robbery 
and  martyrdom  to  which  they  were  subjected  by  this  "uniat" 
apostle.  In  the  end,  it  is  pleasing  to  relate,  he  was  worsted, 
though  he  is  said  to  have  converted  some  of  Nicodemus' 
adherents  to  the  ministration  of  orthodox  popes. 

Nor  was  it  in  Starodub  alone  that  a  handful  of  the  Raskol- 
niks  entered  into  the  Uniat  movement,  merely  to  find  that  the 
Government  took  advantage  of  it  to  fijc  a  noose  round  their 
necks  to  be  drawn  tight  on  the  first  occasion.  In  Irgiz  also 
the  monk  Serge,  Abbot  of  the  upper  Preobrazhenski  monastery, 


120  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

took  up  the  idea,  influenced  it  is  said  by  the  scandalous  Hfe  of 
the  renegade  clergy  on  whom  his  sect  depended  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Sacraments,  though  it  is  difficult  to  conceive, 
in  view  of  what  one  knows  of  Russia  in  that  age,  how  they  could 
differ  for  the  worse  from  the  orthodox  clergy.     He  took  council 
with  Nicephorus  Theotoki,  bishop  of  Astrakhan,  who  at  his 
instance  addressed  in  1786  an  epistle  to  the  Raskol,  conceived 
in  a  spirit  of  charity.     Serge  thereupon  drew  up  fifteen  ques- 
tions relating  to  the  differences  which  kept  the  sect  separate 
from  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  embodying  the  conditions  upon 
which  they  would  make  their  peace  with  it.     He  then  pro- 
ceeded to  call  together  a  number  of  the  heads  of  Irgiz,  and 
Raskol  monasteries  in  Moscow  and  Petersburg  and  read  his 
document  to  them.     They  approved  and  in  1790  it  was  for- 
warded to  Nicephorus  for  him  to  lay  it  before  the  Governor  of 
Saratov  whose  rule  extended  over  Astrakhan.     Serge  received 
an  answer  in  due  time  and,  having  converted  a  rich  merchant  of 
Volsk  of  the  name  of  Zlobin  to  his  point  of  view,  set  about  to 
reaUze  his  scheme.    But  the  merchant  had  not  consulted  his 
own  wife  Pelagia  who  was  a  stubborn  Raskolnik,  and  who, 
having  acquainted  herself  with  what  was  afoot,  set  herself 
to  frustrate  what  she  regarded  as  an  act  of  treachery  with  the 
aid  of  Serge's  own  sister  Alexandra,  prioress  of  a  Raskol  nun- 
nery and  as  resolute  as  herself.     The  plan  was  to  arrest  Serge 
and  hold  him  prisoner  or  even  slay  him,  but  he  made  good  his 
escape  to  Petersburg  before  the  two  ladies  could  execute  it. 
Zlobin  also  reached  the  Capital,  and  the  two  having  gained  the 
ear  of  Gabriel,  by  his  advice  petitioned  the  Holy  Synod  to  send 
priests  of  their  own  to  Irgiz ;  and  Serge  was  himself  allowed 
to  select  two  from  the  Tikhvin  monastery.    But  the  two 
encountered  no  friendly  reception;    Serge,  who  on  his  return 
to  Irgiz  took  up  his  quarters  in  the  Uspenski  monastery  in  the 
room  assigned  to  the  Abbot,  was  all  but  suffocated  by  the 
Cellarius  and  two  other  monks.     They  set  upon  him  by  night 
and  locked  him  up  in  the  larder,  whence  he  was  only  rescued  by 
the  local  pohce  of  Volsk,  warned  by  his  nephew  of  his  grave 
pUght.     The  brethren  appointed  another  Abbot,  Prokhorus, 
in  his  place,  and  Serge  despairing  of  Irgiz  retired  with  his 


THE  DISPERSION  121 

nephew  and  some  of  his  kindred  to  a  Starodub  village  where 
Nicodemus  had  a  monastery  at  his  disposal.  Of  this  he  was 
made  hieromonachus,  and  having  frankly  joined  the  Orthodox 
Church  avenged  himself  on  his  former  co-religionists  in  a  book 
entitled  ''A  Mirror  for  Old  Believers."  His  confederate 
Zlobin,  after  a  feeble  attempt  to  convert  the  village  of  Volsk, 
where  he  lived,  to  the  Uniat  faith,  died,  according  to  Ivanovski, 
a  sincere  believer  in  the  same,  though  he  had  wavered  much  in 
his  opinions.  Orthodox  historians,  it  will  be  noticed,  rope  in 
on  their  death-beds  all  Old  believers  who  ever  made  even  the 
least  rapprochement  towards  orthodoxy.  In  the  Nizhegorod 
the  Bishop  Paul  in  1797  represented  to  the  Synod  that  they 
ought  to  send  priests  to  the  Raskolniks  of  his  see,  of  whom 
according  to  him  there  were  a  thousand  in  favour  of  reunion; 
the  Tsar  Paul  I  accordingly  issued  an  Ukase  allowing  priests  to 
be  sent  in  such  cases  without  an  appeal  being  on  every  occasion 
addressed  to  him.  We  realize  from  the  necessity  of  such  an 
ukase  how  thoroughly  the  Orthodox  Church  was  subordinated 
to  the  State.     It  was  a  mere  department  of  it. 

About  the  same  time  a  number  of  the  Old  believers  of  Kazan 
asked  for  orthodox  priests;  and  the  archbishop,  Ambrose, 
prevailed  on  the  Synod  to  allow  him  to  place  at  their  disposal 
the  church  of  the  Four  EvangeUsts  on  lake  Kaban  along  with 
a  priest  named  Andreev. 

In  Petersburg  in  1799  an  Oldbehever  Ivan  Mylov  found  it 
expedient  on  being  ennobled  to  desert  so  plebeian  a  cult  as 
that  of  the  Raskol;  he  had  a  private  chapel,  which  he  enlarged 
and  had  it  consecrated  to  St.  Nicholas.  Whereupon  the  Tsar 
Paul  I  paid  him  the  compUment  of  hearing  mass  said  in  it. 

The  Concessions  of  Paul  I 

About  this  time  the  Tsar  sanctioned  a  code  of  rules  for  such 
Popovtsi  as  could  be  persuaded  by  force,  fraud  or  personal 
and  spiritual  advantages  to  join  the  Orthodox  Church.  The 
occasion  was  a  request  made  in  1799  by  the  Old  believers  of 
Moscow  that  the  Church  would  supply  them  with  Priests 
and  Holy  Chrism.  It  was  addressed  to  Plato  the  Metropoli- 
tan, who  refused  on  the  suspicion  that  they  were  not  sincere. 


122  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

They  then  appUed  to  Ambrose,  archbishop  of  Kazan,  where- 
upon the  Tsar  put  an  end  to  these  negotiations.  The  would-be 
Uniats  however  did  not  acquiesce  in  the  refusal,  and  formu- 
lated sixteen  conditions  under  which  they  would  renew  com- 
munion, which  after  examination  by  Plato  were  sanctioned  by 
the  Tsar  Paul  I,  Oct.  27,  1800.  Of  these  conditions,  some  old, 
some  new,  the  chief  were  the  remission  of  the  anathemas  of 
1666-7  and  permission  to  use  the  old  books.  The  priests  to 
be  accorded  to  the  Raskol  were  to  be  of  the  Orthodox  rite  or 
expressly  ordained  for  the  purpose;  but  in  no  case  were  they 
to  be  fugitives  from  the  Church.  Such  of  the  Raskol  as  had 
taken  monkish  orders  were  to  be  accepted  as  monks,  and  chrism 
was  to  be  provided  by  the  bishop  of  each  see  in  which  it  was 
required. 

Under  these  conditions  the  Uniats  were  to  retain  their  own 
ecclesiastical  establishments,  but  for  the  consecration  of  new 
churches  Uniat  priests  were  to  be  employed.  In  case  an  ortho- 
dox pope  officiated  in  an  Uniat  church  he  was  to  use  the  old 
books;  nay  even  prelates  were  to  do  hkewise.  They  were 
also  to  cross  with  the  two  fingers.  On  the  other  hand  Uniat 
clergy  were  forbidden  to  take  part  in  pubUc  services  or  pro- 
cessions, and  were  only  to  officiate  inside  their  own  churches. 
If  an  Old  behever  desired  it,  an  orthodox  priest  was  free  to 
confess  and  communicate  him,  but  not  vice  versa.  Plato  was 
willing  that  an  Uniat  priest  should  administer  the  last  Sacra- 
ments to  members  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  but  only  if  no 
orthodox  pope  was  at  hand.  So  much  anxiety  was  felt  on  the 
point  that  every  precaution  was  taken  to  prevent  any  leakage 
from  the  orthodox  into  the  Uniat  camp.  All  these  privileges 
however,  were  of  narrow  range,  for  they  were  confined  either 
to  the  registered  Raskol,  who  as  we  have  seen  tended  to  be  a 
small  majority,  or  if  to  others  than  them,  only  to  those  who 
possessed  the  warranty  of  an  orthodox  prelate  that  they  had 
never  tried  to  pass  themselves  off  as  orthodox.  A  mixed  mar- 
riage might  be  held  in  whichever  church  the  parties  could 
agree  upon,  and  children  of  the  marriage  baptized  in  accord- 
ance with  a  similar  agreement.  The  demand  of  the  Raskol- 
niks  that  the  Uniats  should  receive  the  Sacraments  of  the 


THE  DISPERSION  123 

orthodox  and  vice  versa  with  complete  reciprocity  was  rejected 
sans  phrase. 

The  above  provisions  were  Uberal  if  we  consider  the  age  and 
time  in  which  they  were  drawn  up;  and  if  Nikon  had  been 
less  intransigent  and  had  granted  them  140  years  earlier, 
schism  would  have  been  avoided.  All  the  same,  as  Ivanovski 
allows,  many  Uniats  were  not  satisfied  with  such  concessions, 
for  they  wanted  permission  for  the  orthodox  to  join  them- 
selves and  they  also  wanted  a  bishop  of  their  own.  These 
concessions  the  Church  would  not  make,  although  it  was  ready 
to  facihtate  in  any  way  the  transference  to  the  Uniat  body  of 
unregistered  Raskolniks;  and  at  the  instance  of  the  Bishop 
of  Perm  it  was  arranged  that  Raskolniks  of  ten  years'  standing 
might  join  the  Uniats.  In  1881  the  Holy  Synod  reduced  this 
term  to  five  years,  and  at  the  same  time  it  was  conceded  that 
an  Uniat  priest  might  hear  confessions  from  orthodox  laymen 
and  administer  the  Sacraments  to  them  on  condition  the 
orthodox  priest  of  the  parish  was  informed  of  the  same  in 
writing.  In  the  same  year  the  Greek  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople gave  a  faculty  to  the  clergy  under  his  jurisdiction  to  use 
pre-Nikonian  rites.  This  concession  was  made  chiefly  in 
view  of  a  colony  of  Old  beUevers  who  had  long  before  settled 
at  Maenos  on  the  Bosphorus.  At  the  same  time  a  priest  was 
ordained  in  Moscow  for  this  congregation. 

The  Persecution  of  the  Raskol  by  Nicholas  I 

The  Uniat  concessions  made  by  Paul  I  might  conceivably 
have  borne  fruit  in  the  XlXth  Century  except  for  the  incom- 
prehensible ferocity  of  the  attempts  made  under  Nicholas  I 
to  force  orthodoxy  upon  the  Raskol  at  large.^  These  attempts 
began  in  1827  with  a  threat  on  the  part  of  Prince  GoUtsyn, 
Governor  of  Saratov,  to  break  up  the  monastery  of  Nizhni- 
Voskresenski,  unless  they  became  Uniats.  He  went  in  person 
among  the  monks  and  read  them  an  imperial  ukase  to  the 
effect  that  all  the  monasteries  of  Irgiz  should  be  destroyed  in 
the  event  of  their  non-compUance.  The  next  day  the  prior 
Adrian  and  a  dozen  of  the  brethren  submitted  to  the  bishop 

^  Sokolov,  Raskol  in  Saratov,  p.  297. 


124  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  Saratov,  Moses ;  by  their  craven  action  they  so  incensed  the 
rest  of  the  settlement  that  the  pohce  had  to  be  called  in  to 
protect  them,  and  the  recalcitrants  having  been  either  pressed 
for  the  army  or  sent  to  Siberia,  the  fabric  was  handed  over  to 
the  servile  minority.  Such  was  the  fate  of  this  one  convent. 
The  others  remained  defiant,  and  enjoyed  a  certain  respite 
from  Nicholas'  fury,  for  the  two  successors  of  GoUtsyn  in  the 
Governments  of  Saratov,  Roslavlev  and  Pereverzev,  to  their 
credit,  did  their  best  to  protect  them. 

But  the  calm  did  not  last  long.  In  1836  a  certain  Stepanov, 
was  made  Governor  of  Saratov;  and  in  appointing  him  the 
Tsar  remarked  ^  on  the  abundance  of  sectaries  in  that  region 
and  especially  in  the  monasteries  of  Irgiz.  Stepanov  prom- 
ised he  would  reduce  them  to  a  single  denomination.  The  Tsar 
assented,  but  deprecated  violence.  "Proceed  warily,"  he  said, 
"and  do  not  exasperate  them."  Stepanov  determined  to 
begin  with  the  Middle-Nikolski  convent  which  was  at  the  vil- 
lage of  Mechetnoe  within  the  pale  of  the  newly  constituted 
town  of  Nikolaev;  and  advised  the  Minister  of  the  Interior 
that  the  task  was  a  feasible  one.  The  monks,  if  they  would 
become  Uniats,  were  to  retain  the  premises,  but  their  house 
was  to  pass  under  the  control  of  the  archimandrite  Zosimus, 
prior  of  the  Kostroma  Vysokovski  Uniat  Monastery;  and  it 
was  resolved  by  the  Governor  with  the  connivance  of  Jacob, 
bishop  of  Saratov,  to  execute  the  measure  by  surprise  and  by 
way  of  a  coup  de  main.  Accordingly,  the  provost  of  Nikolaev 
and  the  Commissioner  of  Saratov  suddenly  presented  them- 
selves on  February  8  before  Cornelius  the  Abbot,  shewed  him 
the  imperial  edict  and  demanded  the  keys  and  property  of  the 
house.  Cornehus  refused,  unless  the  surrounding  population 
assented,  and,  as  the  secret  had  been  badly  kept,  some  three 
hundred  of  the  latter  had  gathered  round  and  shouted:  "We 
will  not  give  up  the  Monastery,  no  matter  how  much  you  shed 
our  blood."  ^ 

'  Russkaya  Starina,  1879,  I.  552. 

^  I  was  once  the  witness  of  a  very  similar  scene  at  Valarsliapat,  when  a  detach- 
ment of  cavalry  took  possession  of  the  Armenian  convent  in  order  to  carry  off 
two  harmless  and  aged  monks,  suspected  by  the  Russian  Government  of  favouring 
the  election  as  Armenian  Patriarch  of  Monsignor   Ormanian,  Armenian  Patriarch 


THE  DISPERSION  125 

Cornelius  made  no  attempt  to  resist,  but  took  the  keys  of  his 
house  and  laid  them  on  the  table,  whereupon  Zosimus  took 
them  up  and  went  towards  the  church  to  unlock  it;  but  a 
crowd  had  collected  in  the  porch  and  barred  his  way,  wMle 
others  sounded  an  alarm  on  the  big  bell,  crying:  "  Help,  Help ! " 
Zosimus  was  not  authorized  to  resort  to  force,  so  he  retired 
with  his  officers  to  the  town  and  wrote  a  minute  of  the  affair  to 
his  superiors. 

In  February  a  large  posse  of  officials,  with  gendarmes  to  assist 
them,  repaired  afresh  to  the  monastery,  and  found  a  crowd  of 
some  500  gathered  inside  the  precincts,  ringing  the  bells  to 
attract  their  fellows  outside,  and  once  more  the  officials  retired 
after  making  a  few  arrests.  Information  was  conveyed  to 
Saratov,  and  now  the  Governor  himself  appeared  on  the  scene, 
only  to  find  some  2,000  sectaries  mustered  inside  the  convent, 
who  fell  on  their  knees  in  a  circle  round  the  church,  clasping 
each  others  hands  and  vowing  that  it  should  only  be  entered, 
if  at  all,  across  their  dead  bodies.  Thereupon  the  Governor 
returned  to  Saratov  and  wrote  to  the  ministry  accusing  the 
poor  people  of  sedition  and  riot. 

The  inevitable  in  Russia,  then  ensued.  The  Governor 
appeared  once  more  with  a  force  of  Cossacks  and  artillery. 
A  nmiour  was  set  abroad  that  the  Raskolniks  intended  to 
burn  down  the  monastery,  so  a  fire  engine  was  brought  on  the 
scene,  and  streams  of  water  pumped  over  them  as  they  lay  on 
the  ground,  with  clasped  hands.  It  was  a  glacial  day,  and 
presently,  unable  to  stand  the  cold  water,  they  proceeded  to 
flee  inside  the  buildings.  In  the  melee  which  followed  the 
soldiers  beat  them  with  the  butt  ends  of  their  muskets  and 
arrested  many  of  them,  after  which  the  monastery  was  handed 
over  to  Zosimus.  At  the  same  time  the  women's  convent  of 
Uspenski  was  closed,  and  such  of  its  inmates  as  were  registered 
obliged  to  migrate  to  the  Pokrovski  convent  in  Upper  Irgiz, 
the  rest  being  sent  to  their  homes.  But  not  a  single  monk 
or  nun  turned  Uniat.     All  of  them  were  scattered  far  and  wide, 

of  Constantinople.  It  was  a  time  of  interregnum,  when  the  old  Patriarch  was 
dead  and  the  time  drawing  near  for  the  election  of  a  new  one  by  all  the  Armenian 
congregations  of  the  entire  world.  The  Russian  Government  dreaded  the  election 
of  a  Turkish  prelate,  and  had  a  creature  of  their  own  for  the  post. 


126  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

some  to  the  Ural,  others  to  the  Don,  many  to  the  deserts  of 
Siberia,  where  they  spread  the  tale  which  enhanced  the  propa- 
ganda of  their  sect.  Nor  did  Stepanov  gain  anything  by  it, 
for,  as  is  usual  with  despotisms,  the  sins  of  the  system  were 
atoned  for  by  the  unsuccessful  instrument.  He  was  cashiered 
and  one  Bibikov  sent  to  take  his  place,  but  not  without  a 
direct  admonition  on  the  part  of  Nicholas  I  on  no  account  to 
lose  sight  of  any  opportunity  that  might  offer  itself  of  annihi- 
lating the  Spasopreobrazhenski  Monastery  of  the  Raskolniks. 

In  1841  its  conversion  to  the  Uniat  body  was  actually  ef- 
fected under  the  new  Governor  Thadeev.  A  sudden  descent  was 
inade  on  the  place,  and  bursting  into  the  church,  the  authorities 
with  the  Uniat  clergy  in  their  train  sprayed  it  with  their  own 
holy  water.  The  monks  were  ordered  to  join  the  Uniats  or  quit 
the  place,  and  all  but  two  quitted  it.  The  monk  Trifilius,  a 
creature  of  the  Bishop  of  Saratov,  was  then  made  Abbot. 
With  the  same  secrecy,  suddenness  and  violence  the  Pokrovski 
nunnery  was  assigned  to  the  Uniats,  but  not  a  single  nun 
apostatized. 

Such  measures  in  Irgjz  contributed  enormously  to  the  spread 
of  the  Raskol,  and  they  were  related  in  verse  all  over  Russia. 
They  revealed  what  Tsardom  was  capable  of. 

I  have  outlined  from  Macarius'  and  Ivanovski's  pages  the 
Uniat  movement  initiated  at  Starodub  by  Nicodemus.  We  are 
not  surprised  to  learn  from  the  same  author  that  after  his  death 
it  made  no  way,  and  that  the  true  Raskol  waxed  stronger  and 
stronger  under  Alexander  I.  The  Tsar  Nicholas  Pavlovich 
on  his  way  to  the  Crimea  in  1847,  halted  at  a  Starodub  village 
named  Dobryank,  whose  inhabitants  proffered  him  the  usual 
bread  and  salt  of  old-world  hospitality.  He  decUned  it  harshly 
and  addressed  the  village  deputies  as  follows:  "I  regret  deeply 
to  see  you  all  in  error;  whenever  you  make  up  your  minds  to  go 
to  church,  I  will  accept  your  bread,  and  will  myself  build  you  a 
church."  And  to  suit  the  words  a  Uniat  Church  was  instantly 
built  and  consecrated  in  the  presence  of  the  commandant  of 
Starodub ;  and  a  Uniat  priest  named  Timothy  Verkhovski  was 
sent  thither  from  Petersburg.  On  his  way  back  the  Tsar  find- 
ing the  church  built  accepted  bread  and  salt. 


THE  DISPERSION  127 

In  Moscow  also  under  Nicholas  an  attempt  was  made  to 
implant  the  Uniat  faith  in  the  Raskol  centres  of  the  Popovtsy 
and  Bezpopovtsy  (Thedosievtsy)  sects,  known  respectively  as 
the  Rogozhski  and  Preobrazhenski  cemeteries.^  In  the  former 
one  Vladimir  Andreevich  Sapelkin  acquired  some  influence, 
and  according  to  Ivanovski  he  neither  shared  the  doubts  still 
entertained  by  many  of  the  Popovtsy  of  the  vaUdity  of  ortho- 
dox orders  nor  tolerated  the  ordination  by  the  stray  bishop 
they  had  procured  of  peasants  and  tradesmen  who  had  no 
learning  or  sense  of  vocation.  In  1854  accordingly  he  ad- 
dressed himself  to  Philaret  the  metropoUtan  with  a  view  to  the 
reconsecration  of  one  of  the  oratories  of  his  sect  as  a  church, 
and  this  was  effected  much  to  the  indignation  and  surprise  of 
the  faithful  who  in  the  course  of  the  vigil  of  the  eve  of  the 
ceremony  surrounded  his  house  crying:  "Let  us  burn  down 
Sapelnik's  house!",  a  demonstration  of  hatred  which  the 
latter's  faith  in  God  and  the  Russian  pohce  combined  quahfied 
him  to  bear  with  equanimity,  and  the  entire  convent  was 
handed  over  to  the  Uniats.  In  1856  the  old  rites  were  resumed, 
priests  being  provided  of  Austrian  ordination.  This  led  to  the 
closing  of  the  Popovets  Church  and  the  altars  remained  sealed 
until  May  3,  1883.  In  1854  the  priestless  cemetery  of  Preo- 
brazhen,  which  Haxthausen  visited  ten  years  before  and  has 
described,  was  similarly  invaded  with  the  magnificent  result 
that  sixty-four  persons  became  Uniats.  One  chapel  was  then 
consecrated  by  the  metropoUtan,  and  another  in  1857.  In 
1866  an  Uniat  Monastery  for  men  was  established  under  the 
archimandrite  Paul  of  Prussia  and  the  Ubrary  of  the  merchant 

^  The  right  to  possess  these  cemeteries  and  to  construct  in  them  hospitals  and 
chapels  and  monastic  buildings  was  conceded  by  Catherine  in  1771,  and  as  Leroy- 
Beaulieu  remarks  (iii.  405),  they  remind  us  of  the  Roman  cemeteries  of  the  early 
Christians.  They  were  and  are  vast  compounds  in  the  suburbs  surrounded  by 
walls;  round  them  were  grouped  the  houses  and  workshops  of  the  two  sets  of 
sectaries;  inside  them  were  their  chief  bureaux  for  the  management  of  their 
affairs  all  over  the  Empire.  Each  establishment  had  its  directors,  its  treasury, 
its  own  regulations,  its  charter,  its  seal.  Each,  as  the  same  author  says,  was 
at  once  a  convent,  a  seminary,  a  sort  of  chamber  of  commerce  and  a  bourse. 
Nicholas  I.  suppressed  the  one  and  the  other;  the  altars  in  the  Rogozhski  were 
still  sealed  when  Leroy-Beaulieu  visited  Moscow  and  only  released  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  temporary  fall  from  power  of  Count  D.  Tolstoi,  procm-ator  of  the 
Holy  Synod. 


128  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Alexis  Ivan  Khludovo  deposited  therein.  Paul  had  come  to 
Russia  in  1847  and  had  written  many  books  about  the  Raskol. 

In  1848  a  skete  of  the  Popovtsy  had  long  been  sealed  and 
sequestrated  by  the  Government  in  the  province  of  Semenov 
in  the  Nizhegorod  Government.  Tarasius,  formerly  prior, 
tired  it  would  seem  of  the  nomadic  Ufe  inflicted  on  him,  had 
promised  the  local  bishop  to  become  a  Uniat,  if  he  might  be 
readmitted  with  his  monks,  of  whom  a  certain  number  shared 
in  his  submission.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  pohcy  of  the  Russian 
Government  all  through  was  that  of  which  Pobedonostsev 
under  Alexander  III  secured  the  ratification  by  law,  namely 
that  if  any  member  of  any  family,  man,  woman  or  child,  any- 
where in  the  Russian  dominions,  joined  the  Orthodox  Church, 
the  entire  family  should  be  regarded  officially  as  such.  One 
can  conceive  of  the  hatred  for  the  Church  engendered  by  such 
legislation.  It  is  obvious  that  the  Popovtsy  recognition  of  the 
validity  of  the  orders  of  fugitive  priests  who  came  over  to 
them  from  the  Orthodox  Church  furnished  the  latter  with  a 
certain  pretext  for  its  use  against  them.  The  Bezpopovtsy 
held  a  more  logical  position  and  one  less  assailable  by  a  perse- 
cuting Government  such  as  until  yesterday  was  Holy  Russia. 

Beside  the  few  centres  in  which  the  origin  and  fortunes  of 
the  Uniat  Movement  have  been  detailed,  it  was  pushed  far 
and  wide  over  the  whole  country  between  1825  and  1854,  as 
many  as  one  hundred  and  fifty  Uniat  Churches  being  built  in 
that  period,  largely  in  consequence  of  the  zeal  and  energy  for 
the  cause  of  Jacob,  Bishop  of  Saratov,  and  Arcadius,  Bishop 
of  Perm.  Yet  the  historian  Ivanovski  seems  dubious  of  the 
ultimate  success  of  the  movement.  Many  of  the  Uniats,  he 
states,  having  obtained  a  clergy  and  permission  to  keep  up  the 
old  rites,  set  themselves  to  emphasize  their  pecuUar  status 
and  their  independence  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  They  took 
no  pains  to  conceal  their  leanings  towards  the  Raskol,  and  were 
careful  to  convey  to  their  neighbours  the  impression  that  they 
were  genuine  Raskolniki.  Here  and  there  they  even  refused 
to  accept  the  popes  sent  them  by  the  Synod  without  first 
subjecting  them  to  ''correction  or  amendment";  they  did  so, 
for  example,  in  the  village  of  Krivolych  (in  the  Nikolaev  region 


THE  DISPERSION  129 

of  the  Saratov  Government).  Occasionally  they  refused  to 
allow  an  orthodox  bishop  to  officiate  in  their  churches.  In  the 
Kostroma  Government  many  professed  themselves  Uniats, 
yet  remained  Raskol,  and  subjected  the  popes  sent  to  minister 
to  them  to  every  sort  of  oppression,  indignity  and  servitude. 
Others  continued  to  clamour  for  a  bishop  of  their  own,  for 
free  permission  to  be  given  to  the  orthodox  to  join  them  and 
for  the  annulHng  of  the  anathemas  of  1667.  A  leading  Uniat 
agitator  of  this  kind  was  the  priest,  Joan  Verkhovski  of  Peters- 
burg, who  as  late  as  1885  was  on  that  account  unfrocked  by 
the  Synod  and  found  it  consonant  with  his  personal  safety 
to  retire  across  the  frontier  to  the  Raskol  abroad. 

Palmieri  (Chiesa  Russa,  1908,  p.  456),  whose  opinion  carries 
weight,  is  equally  convinced  that  the  Uniat  movement  or 
edinovierie,  as  it  is  called,  has  no  futm-e  before  it.  In  spite  of  the 
mild  flattery  of  the  Synod,  he  declares  it  to  be  a  hybrid  organ- 
ism in  Orthodox  Russia.  "Its  separatist  tendencies,  inherited 
from  the  Raskol,  are  accentuated  every  day:  it  would  form 
alongside  of  the  official  Church  modernized,  a  second  official 
Church  on  ancient  fines."  He  reviews  the  Uniat  attempts 
to  secure  a  hierarchy,  so  nearly  successful  under  Alexander  I 
in  1824;  and  he  gives  an  accoimt  of  the  debate  held  in  the 
Holy  Synod  in  1864,  when  some  members  shewed  themselves 
favourable  to  the  institution  of  an  Uniat  bishop;  Plato,  how- 
ever, the  bishop  of  Kostroma,  insisted  that  it  would  diminish 
the  prestige  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  violate  ecclesiastical 
canons  by  placing  two  bishops  in  one  eparchial  jurisdiction, 
confuse  parish  and  administrative  records,  alienate  Raskolniks 
still  more  completely  from  Orthodoxy,  lower  the  episcopal 
dignity,  and  encourage  the  founding  of  an  independent  Church. 
Other  bishops  feared  it  would  pave  the  way  to  a  fresh  schism 
and  strengthen  the  Raskol  argument  that  the  Church  is  infected 
with  error.  It  appears,  however,  that  in  spite  of  these  argu- 
ments ten  bishops  against  twelve  upheld  the  Uniat  plea,  as  the 
only  method  of  strengthening  the  Uniats  in  their  struggle  with 
the  Raskol  hierarchy.  In  general,  says  Palmieri,  the  Uniats 
are  viewed  with  contempt  by  the  Orthodox,  with  hatred  by  the 
Raskol.    It  is  a  half-way  house  that  disgusts  both,  and  most 


130  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Raskolniks  would  prefer  to  go  straight  back  into  the  Church. 
What  the  influence  of  the  present  revolution  will  be,  in  case  it 
permanently  succeed,  we  must  wait  to  see.  The  immediate 
result  wall  be  that  the  Raskol  everywhere  will  enjoy  the  same 
privileges  as  the  Orthodox  Church,  in  which  case  the  Uniats 
might  well  rejoin  the  Raskol;  but  as  the  white  or  parochial 
clergy  will  inevitably  assert  themselves  against  the  monkish 
higher  clergy,  it  is  possible  that  the  lines  of  demarcation 
between  Raskol  and  orthodoxy  may  be  more  or  less  obhter- 
ated  and  a  return  be  made  to  the  state  of  things  that  prevailed 
in  the  XVth  Century  when  the  Popes  were  the  servants  of  the 
Mirs. 

On  the  other  hand  Ivanovski  notes  a  tendency  among  sincere 
Uniats  to  draw  nearer  to  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  he  ascribes 
this  tendency  to  the  spectacle  of  bishops  officiating  in  their 
churches  and  using  there  the  old  rites,  the  two  fingers,  etc.; 
for  such  incidents  prove  to  them  that  the  Orthodox  Church  no 
longer  regards  them  as  heretics.  In  Moscow  and  Kazan  the 
rival  clergy  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  officiate  together  at 
the  same  altar,  so  proving  that  they  really  form  a  single  Church. 
Owing  to  the  complaint  of  some  Uniats  that  the  condenmation 
in  1666-7  of  the  old  rites  weighed  upon  their  consciences,  the 
Holy  Synod  in  1886  issued  an  'Explanation'  to  the  effect  that 
these  censures  and  ancient  polemics  reflected  nothing  more 
than  the  personal  opinions  of  over-zealous  writers  and  ''were 
neither  shared  nor  upheld  by  the  Orthodox  Church  itself." 
This  explanation  evinces  a  laudable  regret  for  its  past  on  the 
part  of  the  Orthodox  Church  and  Synod,  and  an  anxiety  not 
to  commit  such  folHes  in  future  as  Nikon  was  allowed  to  com- 
mit; but  historically  it  is  a  direct  contradiction  of  the  events 
which  led  to  the  schism  as  related  by  Ivanovski  himself. 
In  1890  the  Uniats  appealed  afresh  to  Government  to  be 
granted  their  own  hierarchy,  but  Pobedonostsev  opposed  the 
scheme,  although  in  1905  some  of  the  members  of  the  Synod 
favoured  the  institution  of  a  Uniat  see  at  Uralsk  near  Orenburg 
where  55%  of  the  population  were  Raskolniks.  This  was  after 
the  proclamation  of  hberty  of  conscience,  which  encouraged 
the  Uniats  to  renew  tiieir  demand  for  a  bishop  of  their  own. 


THE  DISPERSION  131 

Late  in  the  same  year  they  founded  a  journal  for  the  defence 
of  their  interests. 

The  Uniat  movement  was  due  to  the  widespread  desire  of 
the  Popovtsy  to  secure  a  hierarchy  of  their  own.  It  is  now 
time  to  narrate  a  less  equivocal  endeavour  towards  the  same 
end,  which  was  crowned  with  comparative  success. 

The  Austrian  Hierarchy 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  Empress  Catharine  was  more 
tolerant  in  spirit  towards  the  Raskol  than  any  of  the  Tsars, 
except  perhaps  Alexander  I,  no  steps  being  taken  in  their  reigns 
to  cut  off  the  supply  of  runaway  popes  upon  whom  the  Popovtsy 
depended  for  the  administration  of  the  Sacraments;  this 
enabled  them  to  hold  as  many  services  as  they  hked  and  to 
spare  nothing  to  make  them  as  elegant  and  elaborate  as  those 
of  the  Orthodox  Church.  But  Nicholas  I  after  his  accession, 
in  1827  abruptly  cut  off  the  supply  both  at  the  Rogozhski  Ceme- 
tery in  Moscow  and  elsewhere,  subjecting  to  dire  penalties 
popes  who  quitted  the  orthodox  fold  in  order  to  minister  to 
heretics.  In  1832  all  older  laws  mitigating  the  fate  of  the 
Raskol  were  repealed,  and  by  the  new  law  the  Popovtsy  could 
only  retain  popes  who  had  joined  them  before  1826. 

Those  who  remained  were  perpetually  dwindling,  if  we  may 
beUeve  Ivanovski,  and,  being  able  to  magnify  their  office  as 
they  pleased,  shewed  much  disregard  both  for  the  holy  rites 
and  for  their  congregations.  The  latter  could  not  afford  to 
dismiss  them  for  private  irregularities  nor  for  negUgence  in 
their  ministrations.  One  priest  would  baptize  several  children 
at  once, —  a  justifiable  procedure  of  old  when  a  St.  Gregory 
was  converting  a  whole  nation  of  pagans  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  but  illegitimate  in  a  Christian  age.  He  would  also 
marry  several  couples  in  a  group  and  confess  the  faithful  not 
individually  and  privately  but  collectively,  the  deacon  reading 
out  a  list  of  sins  from  the  Euchologion,  while  the  people  cried 
peccavi  —  a  scandalous  procedure  since  it  involved  the  admis- 
sion by  women  and  children  of  sins  consistent  with  neither 
their  sex  nor  age.     Instead  of  going  about  in  the  open  the 


132  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

dissenting  clergy  under  Nicholas  I  had  to  steal  hither  and 
thither  in  secret,  always  in  fear,  and,  says  Ivanovski,  often 
drunk, —  a  vice  which,  if  they  really  had  it,  was  also  not 
unknown  among  the  orthodox  clergy  and  monks  at  that  time 
as  attests  the  proverb  popular  with  the  muzhik:  "The  pope 
is  drunk  and  his  cross  a  bit  of  wood"! 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  Popovtsy  of  the  Rogozh  Conmiunion 
agitated  for  a  retm-n  to  the  tolerant  law  of  March,  1822,  which 
had  outraged  the  Holy  Synod  by  allowing  the  Raskol  openly 
to  employ  runaway  popes,  in  case  the  latter  before  joining 
them  had  committed  no  criminal  offence.  Meanwhile  the 
old  dreams  of  a  genuine  clergy  somewhere  surviving  in  the 
East  revived;  and  Herachus,  prior  of  the  Kurenev  monastery 
in  the  Podolski  government,  dispatched  several  of  his  own 
monks  to  join  in  a  search  for  a  hierarchy  with  the  Old  beUevers 
of  Moldavia.  Sixteen  in  all  started  and  roamed  through 
Turkey  as  far  as  Egypt.  Only  foiu-  lived  to  return  and  they 
had  found  nothing  suitable. 

Next  the  settlers  of  Irgiz  were  induced  to  go  on  the  same 
quest  by  one  of  their  persuasion,  Athoni  Kuzmich  Kochuev, 
a  man  of  affluence  with  a  hobby  for  collecting  old  books  and 
MSS.  So  much  was  he  esteemed  as  a  bibliophile  even  outside 
his  sect,  that  he  was  elected  in  1847  a  member  of  the  Moscow 
Society  of  Antiquaries.  When  the  idea  was  mooted  in  a 
Synod  held  in  1832  at  the  Rogozhski  Cemetery  (or  hospice) 
in  Moscow,  the  merchant  Tsarski  scouted  it;  but  it  had  the 
support  of  the  rich  family  of  the  Rakhmanovs,  and  eventually 
it  was  resolved  to  consult  the  Old  behevers  in  Petersburg. 
There  the  Popovets  family  of  the  Gromovs,  timber  merchants 
on  a  large  scale,  members  of  the  Korolevski  congregation,  had 
influence,  and  Serge  Gromov  even  consulted  on  the  point 
Count  Benkendorf,  head  of  the  pohce,  who  assured  him  that, 
although  the  Tsar  would  never  allow  of  their  resumption  of 
deserters  from  the  Orthodox  ChiKch,  he  might  not  object  so 
strongly  to  their  setting  up  a  hierarchy  of  their  own.  In  the 
end  Serge  Gromov  resolved  to  seek  a  bishop  himself,  but  said 
nothing  about  it  for  the  moment,  because  he  distrusted  Rakh- 
manov's  loquacity.    He  took  steps  however  to  find  a  man 


THE  DISPERSION  133 

suitable  for  the  prosecution  of  the  quest.  Such  a  one  he  met 
with  in  Peter  Vasilev  Vehkodvorski,  son  of  a  notary  of  a 
village  among  the  Valdai  Hills,  a  man  of  inflexible  will  and 
untiring  energy,  qualities  which  were  written  in  his  face,  if  we 
may  judge  from  a  photograph  taken  of  him  in  old  age  and 
preserved  in  Chernovitz. 

It  is  related  that  on  one  occasion  St.  Nicholas,  patron  saint 
of  this  young  man,  had  appeared  to  him  attired  in  full  canoni- 
cals in  order  to  reassure  him  as  to  the  future  of  the  Popovtsy 
Church  of  which  he  was  an  adherent ;  and  the  tale  fits  in  with 
the  report  that  he  was  a  mystic,  an  ascetic  enthusiast  and  a 
devout  student  of  hagiology.  It  is  probable  that  at  anytime 
dreams  and  visions  were  more  in  vogue  among  the  Old  believers 
than  in  the  bosom  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  of  which  the 
leaders  had  the  poHce  at  their  disposal,  and  were  not  so  much 
in  need  of  spiritual  and  inner  aids  to  faith  and  confidence  in 
their  future. 

Though  we  may  distrust  the  tale,  repeated  by  Ivanovski, 
of  how  Peter  went  a-hunting  for  a  church  treasure  and  failed 
to  find  it,  we  may  well  beheve  that  he  entered  as  a  youth  the 
Old  behevers'  monastery  at  Starodub,  assuming  in  reUgion 
the  name  of  Paul,  that  he  cherished  lofty  but  correspondingly 
vague  aspirations  and  that  he  felt  an  inward  assurance  that 
Providence  had  assigned  him  a  lofty  mission  —  he  did  not 
exactly  know  what.  He  was  in  this  state  of  exaltation  when 
Gromov  met  him  in  1835  and  launched  him  on  a  quest  for  a 
real  bishop.  He  forthwith  chose  another  enthusiast  as  his 
fidus  Achates,  to  wit,  Gerasimus  Kolpakov,  in  religion  Geron- 
tius,  of  the  Serkov  convent  in  Bessarabia,  son  of  a  peasant 
near  Moscow  and  more  practically  minded  than  himself. 

When  the  Emperor  Justinian  closed  the  schools  of  Athens, 
certain  of  the  neo-Platonic  and  pagan  philosophers  of  that 
city  set  out  in  search  of  a  purer  air  and  more  liberal  environ- 
ment for  Persia,  whence  they  afterwards  returned  shocked 
and  discouraged  by  the  vices  of  polygamy  and  worse  which 
were  rampant  in  the  dominion  of  the  Great  King.  Like  them 
in  1836  our  two  seekers  after  a  genuine  episcopate  turned 
their  thoughts  and  their  steps  to  Persia;   but  they  were  not 


134  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

destined  to  reach  that  ecclesiastical  elysium;  for,  having  in- 
curred the  suspicion  of  the  authorities,  they  were  arrested  in 
the  Caucasus  and  sent  back  under  pohce  surveillance,  the  one 
to  the  Valdai,  the  other  to  Bessarabia. 

But  hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast.  The  summer 
of  1839  saw  them  re-equipped  for  their  project;  they  had  not 
abandoned  as  their  guiding  principle  the  old  motto  ex  oriente 
lux,  but  they  took  care  to  start  this  time  by  way  of  Austria, 
with  the  intention  of  making  their  way  to  the  Far  East  along  a 
route  on  which  the  Russian  Government  would  not  be  able  to 
lay  hands  on  them.  In  due  course  they  came  to  the  Popovtsy, 
and  other  Raskol  settlements  at  Bielo  (white)  Krinits  in 
Austria.^  Here  their  co-rehgionists  had  enjoyed  liberty  of 
worship  ever  since  1783,  thanks  to  the  hberal  laws  of  the 
Emperor  Joseph  II ;  and  the  thought  now  struck  Peter  Vasilev 
that  it  would  be  safer  to  establish  his  episcopate  in  this  home  of 
freedom  than  in  Russia.  He  therefore  urged  the  authorities 
of  the  Lipovan  ^  convent  to  supphcate  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment to  permit  them  to  appoint  a  bishop.  The  local  Austrian 
authorities  (Kreisamt)  consented,  but  the  Government  refused, 
possibly  because  they  reaUzed  even  then  that  any  step  taken  or 
allowed  to  be  taken  in  Austria  in  mitigation  of  the  iron  reUgious 
oppression  of  the  Holy  Synod  would  in  due  time  call  down 
upon  them  the  wrath  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  I  and  furnish  him 
in  the  future  with  an  additional  incentive  for  wresting  GaUcia 
and  the  Ruthenes  from  that  connection  with  the  Austrian 
Empire  with  which  they  were  perfectly  content.  The  Ortho- 
dox Church,  which  till  yesterday  pulled  all  strings  of  govern- 
ment and  international  pohcy  in  Russia,  would  be  certain  to 
resent  it,  if  the  Emperor  of  Austria  allowed  a  focus  and  hearth 
of  Raskol  propaganda  to  be  established  on  Austrian  soil. 
The  convent  moreover,  had  only  been  allowed  to  exist  there 

^  Liprandi:  {Short  sketch  of  Raskol,  1853)  describes  the  routes  from  Russia 
into  Austria  and  Bessarabia  taken  by  Raskolniki  in  his  age  and  bitterly  assails  the 
Austrian  Government  for  allowing  them  horses  and  guides!  This  was  in  the  days 
before  railways. 

^  This  was  a  general  name  given  by  their  neighbours  to  Raskolniki  who  had 
taken  refuge  in  Transylvania. 


THE  DISPERSION  135 

on  the  assumption  that  its  inmates  were  of  a  purely  contem- 
plative order. 

But  there  were  those  in  Vienna  who  were  quite  ready  to  do 
the  Holy  Synod  a  nasty  turn,  among  them  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  Count  Kolovrat,  and  the  Arch-Duke  Ludwig;  and 
to  them  Peter  and  his  companion  turned,  with  the  result  that, 
after  all  formaUties  had  been  compUed  with,  the  Emperor 
Ferdinand  in  1844  gave  permission  for  a  foreign  bishop  to  be 
imported  into  his  dominions  by  the  Raskol  and  estabUshed 
at  Bielo-Krinits,  where  the  monastery  was  to  be  under  the 
charge  of  himself  and  his  successors. 

The  two  emissaries,  it  will  be  noticed,  had  passed  several 
years  at  Bielo-Krinits,  during  which  time  Gerontius  had  been 
elevated  to  the  dignity  of  Superior  of  the  monastery  there,  in 
succession  to  the  monk  Joel.  He  now  returned  to  Russia, 
only  to  find  Serge  Gromov  dead.  The  latter  until  now  had 
financed  the  enterprise,  but  the  Rakhmanovs  stepped  nobly 
into  his  place  and  undertook  the  expense,  computed  at  200,000 
roubles,  of  installing  the  future  prelate,  if  one  could  be  procured, 
in  due  style  and  of  rebuilding  the  monastery,  for  the  church  of 
which  the  faithful  were  already  providing  ornaments  and  plate. 

Having  as  it  were  built  the  nest  the  enthusiastic  Peter  now 
started  afresh  for  the  East  in  order  to  find  a  phoenix  bird  to  fill 
it  choosing  as  his  traveUing  companion  another  monk  named 
Alimpius.  He  was  minded,  if  he  could  not  discover  a  genuine 
Old  believer,  to  be  content  with  a  schismatic  bishop  whose 
orders  and  ordinances  the  canon  law  of  the  Church  allowed  him 
to  regard  as  vaUd.  For  generations  there  had  been,  as  we  saw, 
communities  of  Old  behevers  in  European  Turkey,  refugees 
from  Russian  violence  and  cruelty,  and  to  these  the  Raskolnik 
in  quest  of  a  bishop  naturally  first  turned  his  steps.  In  our 
own  generation  we  have  examples  of  Poles  who,  to  avenge 
wrongs  done  by  the  Russian  Government  to  their  compatriots 
have  taken  service  under  the  Turkish  Government,  Already 
in  1844  there  existed  at  the  Porte  a  Polish  section  led  by  a  Pan 
or  member  of  the  PoUsh  nobiUty,  by  name  Tchaykovski,  and 
known  in  Turkish  circles  as  Saduk  Pasha.  To  him  the  Raskol- 
niki  obtaiaed  an  introduction  from  the  Ataman  of  the  Nekra- 


136  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

sovtsy  Goncharov/  and  found  him  only  too  willing  to  render 
a  disservice  to  the  oppressors  of  his  native  land.  He  seems 
even  to  have  had  a  hst  of  stray  bishops  of  the  Greek  rite 
resident  in  the  Turkish  capital  and  in  want  of  employment. 
Peter,  however,  determined  to  try  further  afield  before  adopt- 
ing one  of  these,  and,  filled  with  high  hope,  continued  his 
quest  in  the  East,  where  he  met  with  the  debris  of  Nestorians, 
Eutychians  and  Severians,  but  with  no  Old  behevers.  But  he 
was  able  to  satisfy  himself  that  the  Greeks  shared  his  own 
meticulous  distrust  of  baptism  by  aspersion  and  insisted  on 
trine  immersion,  regarding  the  former  as  no  baptism  at  all, 
but  only  a  Roman  tradition.  Accordingly  when  he  had  found 
his  way  back  again  to  Constantinople,  he  wrote  to  his  friend 
Gerontius  that  he  could  find  no  suitable  candidate  in  the  East, 
but  that  they  could,  without  violating  their  consciences,  acqui- 
esce in  the  choice  of  a  Greek. 

Among  other  candidates  his  PoHsh  friends  especially  com- 
mended to  him  one  Ambrose,  who  had  formerly  been  metropoli- 
tan of  Serajevo  in  Bosnia,  but  whom  for  poUtical  or  other 
reasons  the  Turks  had  expelled  from  his  see.  He  was  a  Greek 
from  Enos,  a  widower,  and  he  was  living  in  Constantinople 
in  great  poverty.  Peter  got  hold  of  a  dragoman,  a  Serb, 
Constantine  Ognianovich  by  name,  who  could  talk  both 
Greek  and  Russian,  and  through  him  opened  negotiations  with 
Ambrose,  but  failed,  it  would  seem,  to  convince  him  at  first 
of  the  canonicity  and  orthodoxy  of  the  Popovtsy  communion. 
Ambrose,  according  to  Ivanovski,  was  dismayed  at  the  pros- 
pect of  being  constrained,  in  order  to  take  up  his  new  episco- 
pate, to  anathematize  an  orthodox  body  of  behevers  hke  the 
Russian  Church  and  himself  to  submit  to  the  indignity  of 
being  re-anointed  as  if  he  were  a  schismatic. 

Henri  IV  found  Paris  worth  a  mass,  and  orthodox  scruples 
have  too  often  yielded  to  cupidity;  and  this  proved  to  be  the 
case  when  Peter  turned  from  the  Bosnian  prelate  to  his  son 
George,  and  dangled  before  his  eyes  the  prospect  of  a  country 
residence  with  ease  and  emolument  on  Austrian  soil.     He 

1  Nekrasov  was  chief  of  a  tribe  of  Don  Cossacks  who  fled  from  Russia  in  the 
days  of  the  Streltsy  revolt.     The  Turkish  Popovtsy  bore  his  name. 


THE  DISPERSION  137 

yielded  and  undertook  to  procure  his  father's  assent  to  the 
scheme;  Ambrose  gave  way,  much  against  his  instincts  and 
better  judgment,  if  we  are  to  beUeve  Ivanovski.  What,  accord- 
ing to  this  authority,  most  awoke  his  reUgious  scruples,  was  the 
Raskol  use  of  two  fingers  in  blessing  instead  of  three;  however, 
Peter  proved  to  his  satisfaction  that  this  usage  went  back 
behind  Nikon;  and,  his  last  scruples  overcome,  Ambrose  on 
April  15th,  1846,  accepted  the  position  on  condition  of  receiving 
500  ducats  a  year  with  a  country  house  for  his  son  George. 
Perhaps  the  promise  that  he  should  appoint  his  son  successor 
and  so  found  a  hierarchy  flattered  the  native  pride  seldom 
absent  in  modern  Greeks,  and  it  is  anyhow  better  to  begin  even 
a  spiritual  hneage  than  to  end  a  carnal  one.  His  happiness 
must  have  been  complete  when  he  was  put  on  board  a  steam- 
packet  en  route  to  Austria.  On  his  way  he  was  exhibited  to  the 
Old-beUeving  congregations  settled  on  the  Duna  (Danube); 
then  resuming  his  disguise,  and  successfully  avoiding  detec- 
tion by  Russian  agents,  he  reached  Vienna,  and  was  at  Bielo- 
Krinits  on  October  12th,  1846. 

Ivanovski  gives  a  somewhat  splenetic  account  of  the  cere- 
mony arranged  a  few  days  later,  October  27th,  for  the  recep- 
tion of  Ambrose  into  the  true  Church  of  the  Popovtsy.  It 
was  held  in  their  church  of  the  Theotokos,  Gerontius  presiding 
with  many  outward  embelhshments  and  much  pomp,  but,  if 
we  can  believe  Ivanovski,  not  without  internal  misgivings  on 
the  part  of  the  main  actors  in  the  scene.  The  Popovtsi  could 
not  agree  among  themselves  on  the  point  whether,  as  was 
usual  with  runaway  popes,  Ambrose  should  be  re-anointed 
with  the  holy  myron.  Peter  had  written  a  book  about  it, 
but  had  failed  to  create  unanimity;  and  finally  the  discussion 
became  so  acrimonious  that  the  congregation  had  to  be  ad- 
journed, without  Ambrose,  who  knew  no  word  of  Russian, 
realizing  in  the  least  what  the  uproar  was  about.  They 
eventually  agreed  to  consult  Ambrose  himself  on  the  morrow 
about  which  rite  of  reception  he  preferred.  Anointers  were 
in  a  majority,  but  Peter  who  urged  the  use  of  the  third  rite 
for  the  reconciliation  of  schismatics  as  found  in  the  old  Slavonic 
Euchologion,  visited  Ambrose  by  night  and  represented  to 


138  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

him  that  in  order  to  quiet  the  conscience  of  the  weaker  brethren 
he  should  submit  to  the  rite  most  in  vogue.  "You  mean  your 
own  conscience,  you  idiot,"  was  Ambrose's  reply. 

Finally  the  hieromonachus  arranged  the  rite  for  the  follow- 
ing day,  and  Ambrose  who  only  understood  of  it  such  passages 
as  his  Serbian  interpreter  translated  for  him,  offered  no  re- 
sistance, reciting  with  much  eclat  —  as  he  stood  before  the 
royal  entrance  of  the  Sanctuary  or  Bema — the  Slav  anathemas 
against  all  heresies  which  had  been  written  out  for  the  purpose 
in  the  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet.  This  much  achieved,  he 
retired  behind  the  screen  into  the  Sanctuary  together  with 
Hieronymus,  to  whom  he  was  to  make  his  confession,  a  rehgious 
act  none  the  easier  of  accompUshment  because  one  of  them 
knew  no  Greek  and  the  other  no  Russian.  The  monk  Onuph- 
rius,  who  was  present,  has  testified,  according  to  Ivanovski, 
that  the  entire  rite  was  uncanonical.  Presumably  he  was  a 
votary  of  re-anointing  with  myron,  but  was  outraged  at  the 
fact  that  Hieronymus,  having  stared  for  a  couple  of  minutes  at 
Ambrose  who  returned  his  stare,  —  this  under  the  rubric  of 
confession  —  anointed  him,  not  with  myron,  of  which  they 
had  none  in  stock,  but  with  common  oil.  Next  Hieronymus 
proclaimed  that  Ambrose  was  worthy  of  his  new  dignity  and 
deposed  in  writing  that  he  had  searched  the  secrets  of  the 
candidate's  heart.  Ambrose  now  issued  forth  through  the 
Royal  Gate  in  full  canonicals  and,  grasping  in  his  hands 
the  three  and  two-branched  candlesticks,  proceeded  to  bless 
the  people. 

Ambrose  was  now  a  Raskol  prelate  or  metropohtan  and 
proceeded  to  celebrate  the  Uturgy  and  ordain  a  clergy  of  every 
grade,  reading  the  prayers  in  his  own  native  Greek,  the  deacon 
making  the  proclamations  in  Slavonic.  In  the  following  year, 
1847,  on  January  6th,  Ambrose  consecrated  a  bishop  for  the  Old 
behevers  settled  at  Maenos.  The  canons  of  course  required 
the  presence  of  three  bishops  at  the  ceremony,  but  the  Raskol 
justified  the  irregularity  on  the  score  of  necessity.  This  was 
the  day  of  Epiphany  when  Eastern  Churches  celebrate  the 
Baptism  of  our  Lord  by  a  solenm  blessing  of  the  waters.  For 
this  rite  the  Popovtsy  produced  on  this  occasion  two  archpriests. 


THE  DISPERSION  139 

Ambrose  read  the  gospel,  Cyril,  the  newly  consecrated  bishop 
of  Maenos,  the  prayers;  he  had  been  secretary  of  the  place 
under  the  lay  name  of  Kiprian  Timofeev.  The  imminence  of 
the  ceremony  had  been  noised  abroad  all  over  the  Bukowina 
and  the  commander  of  the  local  forces  as  well  as  the  civil 
Governor  attended,  a  banquet  being  given  in  their  honour  by 
the  monks. 

The  Austrian  Government  was  clearly  glad  of  an  opportun- 
ity of  sticking  pins  into  a  Schismatic  Church  like  the  Russian 
which  had  nursed  for  centuries  a  sleepless  hostiUty  to  Rome; 
and  the  dismay  and  irritation  of  Petersburg  is  voiced  by  Lip- 
randi  {Short  Sketch  of  Raskol),  who  insists  that  the  Popovtsy 
by  their  connivance  with  the  authorities  of  Bielo-Krinits  in 
erecting  an  alien  hierarchy  in  Russia  had  ceased  to  be  a  re- 
hgious  body  and  constituted  themselves  a  source  of  grave 
poHtical  danger  to  the  Tsar's  Government.  Liprandi  was  an 
inquisitor  appointed  by  Nicholas  I  and  the  right  hand  man  of 
Protassov,  the  hussar  officer  appointed  by  that  Tsar  to  keep 
the  Holy  Synod  in  order,  so  it  could  hardly  occur  to  him  that 
a  little  rehgious  toleration  was  a  better  and  more  dignified 
way  of  exorcising  the  imaginary  menace  than  to  expostulate 
with  the  Austrian  Government.  In  their  self-assumed  role 
of  protectors  of  orthodoxy  all  over  the  world  the  Tsars  con- 
stantly addressed  reprimands  then  and  later  to  foreign  govern- 
ments through  their  Procurators;  for  example  in  December, 
1886,  Pobedonostsev  assailed  Austria  for  favouring  CathoU- 
cism,  and  Rumania  for  negotiating  a  concordat  with  Rome. 
Turkey,  Greece,  Servia,  Bulgaria,  were  equally  regarded  by 
the  Tsars  as  in  a  way  amenable  to  their  religious  jurisdiction. 
Meanwhile  any  foreign  criticism  of  pogroms  was  actively 
resented  in  Petersburg. 

In  August,  1847,  Ambrose  ordained  a  second  bishop,  Ar- 
cadius,  for  the  Nekrasovtsy  or  Raskol  diaspora  of  Turkey. 
He  was  called  the  Slav  bishop,  and  the  Popovtsy  now  had  the 
minimum  of  three  bishops  needful  to  assure  the  future  of  their 
episcopate. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  far  the  affair  of  Bielo- 
Krinits  helped  to  bring  about  the  Crimean  War,  just  as  ortho- 


140  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

dox  propaganda  of  the  Russian  Government  among  the  Latin 
Uniats  of  Eastern  Galicia  and  the  counter  propaganda  of 
Vienna  amongst  the  inhabitants  of  the  Ukraine  were  among 
the  causes  of  the  recent  war. 

On  this  occasion  the  Tsar  Nicholas  felt  that  he  had  been 
outwitted  and  outraged  by  his  Latin  opponents,  and  he 
promptly  arrested  Gerontius  when,  in  the  guise  of  a  merchant 
under  the  name  of  Leonov,  he  entered  his  dominions  with  the 
help  of  a  false  passport;  he  next  sternly  demanded  of  Vienna 
the  removal  of  Ambrose  from  the  Austrian  dominions,  and  at 
the  same  time  called  on  the  Greek  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople to  take  the  necessary  steps  for  his  reconversion  or,  in 
default,  his  condemnation.  The  Greek  Patriarch,  subservient 
then  as  always  to  the  Moscovite,  sent  through  Austrian  chan- 
nels an  intimation  to  Ambrose  that  he  must  repent  and  return. 
The  Austrian  Government  in  its  turn  had  no  desire  to  compU- 
cate  the  internal  difficulties  of  the  moment  by  quarreling  over 
such  a  matter  with  Nicholas  I;  so  Ambrose  was  summoned  to 
Vienna  and  given  to  understand  that  he  must  either  go  back 
whence  he  came  or  retire  into  some  more  convenient  exile; 
and  his  monastery  was  closed  and  officially  sealed  on  March 
3rd,  1848.  But  before  he  had  set  out  for  his  place  of  exile, 
Tsill  in  Styria,  revolution  broke  out  in  Vienna  and  a  popular 
Government  was  estabHshed  at  the  head  of  which  was  Count 
Kolovrat,  the  protector  of  the  Old  behevers  in  Austria.  Alim- 
pius  was  returned  to  the  new  house  of  representatives  as  deputy 
for  the  Bielo-Krinits  monastery,  and  at  once  took  steps  to  get 
it  reopened,  and  Ambrose  went  back  to  it.  The  Government, 
however,  refused  and  Alimpius,  more  immediately  concerned 
in  aiding  the  revolution  in  Prague,  was  too  busy  to  prosecute 
the  enterprise.  Later  on,  however,  he  got  back  to  Vienna  and 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  release  of  Ambrose  who  was  allowed 
to  go  and  hve  at  Tsill  (Tzill).  Lest  the  Popovtsy  hierarchy 
should  fall  below  the  canonical  figure  of  three  bishops,  Cyril 
Bishop  of  Maenos  now  consecrated  Onuphrius,  Bishop  of 
Braila,  and  Sophronius,  Bishop  of  the  Popovtsy  in  Russia,  on 
January  3rd,  1849.  These  two  bishops  in  turn  consecrated 
Cyril  to  be  metropohtan  of  Bielo-Krinits,  with  the  full  grade  of 


THE  DISPERSION  141 

archihieratic  dignity.  The  monks  at  Bielo-Krinits  now 
opened  their  monastery  afresh  without  consulting  the  Govern- 
ment, but  with  the  assent  of  the  local  authorities.  They  con- 
tinued on  sufferance  until  1859  when  the  Government  once 
more  openly  extended  its  patronage  to  the  institution.  In  the 
interim  the  Crimean  War  had  been  fought  and  Nicholas  I 
had  departed  to  a  better  or  a  worse  world. 

The  rest  of  Ambrose's  career  possesses  a  morbid  attraction 
for  Ivanovski.  He  continued  for  a  time  to  draw  his  salary 
from  the  Old  beUevers,  but  he  shewed  his  contempt  for 
them  by  refusing  to  confess  to  the  bishops  and  hieromonachi 
of  their  denomination  who  continued  to  visit  him  in  exile. 
He  was  deeply  incensed  to  find  his  stipend  abolished  in 
1859,  and  made  it  an  occasion  for  anathematizing  Cyril  who 
had  taken  his  place,  along  with  all  the  priests  whom  he  had 
ordained  and  all  who  had  accepted  their  ministrations. 
''Henceforth,"  he  is  reported  to  have  written,  "I  will  make 
Bezpopovtsy  of  the  whole  lot  of  you."  He  died  in  1863  not  — ■ 
we  take  it  for  granted  —  without  receiving  the  viaticum  from 
an  orthodox  Greek  priest,  and  he  was  buried  in  Trieste.  His 
son  George  is  said  to  have  written  later  on,  that  his  venerable 
sire  had  often  blamed  him  for  pushing  him  into  the  Lipovan 
heresy,  of  those  who  baptised  with  aspersion  only, —  a  state- 
ment which  need  not  be  taken  seriously. 

Ivanovski  gives  many  details  of  the  success  of  the  Bielo- 
Krinits  hierarchy  in  Turkey  and  Rumania.  In  the  XVIIIth 
Century  settlements  of  Popovtsy,  fleeing  from  the  Russian 
Government,  had  been  formed  in  the  Dobrudja  along  the  lower 
Danube,  and  here  they  were  known  as  Nekrasovtsy,  after  the 
Cossack  ataman  Nekrasov  who  escaped  thither  from  Russia 
together  with  his  troop.  Another  settlement  had,  as  we  saw 
above,  been  estabhshed  about  1750,  between  the  Sea  of  Mar- 
mora and  the  Archipelago;  a  third,  that  of  Maenos  in  Asia 
Minor  on  the  Sea  itself.  In  all  three  there  Uved  some  10,000 
of  the  sect.  They  had  all  taken  an  interest  in  the  search  for  a 
prelate,  and  it  was  the  ataman  Goncharov  himself  who  had 
introduced  Peter  to  Saduk  Pasha  the  Pole.  They  had  con- 
tributed money  to  the  scheme  and  formed  a  separate  see, 


142  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

although,  it  is  said,  a  minority  repudiated  Ambrose  because 
they  felt  a  doubt  whether  he  had  not  received  in  baptism 
aspersion  instead  of  trine  immersion  —  a  doubt  which,  if  it 
really  existed,  might  one  would  suppose,  have  been  got  rid  of 
by  conditional  rebaptism. 

These  congregations  had  selected  for  ordination  as  their 
bishop  Arcadius  Shaposhnikov,  hegumen  of  the  monastery  of 
St.  Laurence;  but  Ambrose  displayed  his  zeal  for  canonicity 
by  rejecting  him  on  the  score  of  his  having  married  a  widow  in 
his  pre-monkish  days.  Instead  of  him  he  ordained  in  August 
1847,  another  Arcadius,  also  called  Dorotheus  or  Lysias,  who 
was  subjected  to  some  annoyance  by  enemies  of  Ambrose, 
for  they  declared  him  to  be  no  better  than  a  Greek  or  a  Bul- 
garian agitator,  and  essayed  on  that  ground  to  arouse  against 
him  the  suspicions  of  the  Porte.  In  consequence  Arcadius 
was  arrested  and  imprisoned  for  half  a  year  and  only  liberated 
by  the  efforts  of  Goncharov  and  the  Poles.  The  latter  were 
now  rewarded  by  a  firman  granting  to  the  Nekrasovtsy  as  loyal 
subjects  of  the  Sultan  full  liberty,  the  use  of  their  own  clergy, 
and  immunity  from  annoyance  by  any  other  religious  body. 
Taking  advantage  of  the  favours  thus  accorded  them  the 
Popovtsy  of  Turkey  treated  themselves  to  bells  on  their 
churches,  a  luxury  forbidden  to  other  religious  sects,  but  no 
doubt  accorded  to  them  because  of  the  irritation  it  would  be 
sure  to  arouse  in  the  breast  of  Tsar  Nicholas  I  and  his  suc- 
cessors. Arcadius  was  known  as  the  Slavonic  or  Slavianski 
bishop;  and,  as  the  Popovtsy  of  Turkey  at  Tulcha  in  the 
Dobrudja  also  asked  for  a  bishop  of  their  own,  Arcadius  and 
Onuphrius,  Cyril's  suffragan,  consecrated  Alipius  for  their 
special  edification  with  the  title  of  Bishop  of  Tulcha. 

This  was  on  September  27th,  1850,  but  neither  of  these 
bishops  occupied  their  sees  for  long.  In  1853  the  Russian 
armies  invaded  the  principaUties  of  the  Lower  Danube  and 
by  the  advice  of  the  Porte  most  of  the  Nekrasovtsy  families 
fled  from  their  settlements  into  Turkey  proper.  The  two 
bishops,  however,  stuck  to  their  posts;  and  the  fugitives 
claimed  and  obtained  this  time  as  their  archbishop  the  very 
Arcadius  whom  Ambrose,  because  of  a  technical  flaw  in  his 


THE  DISPERSION  143 

sanctity,  had  refused  to  consecrate.  He  was  known  as  the 
bearded  bishop,  and  was  a  man  of  rough  tongue  and  great 
energy.  He  duly  shepherded  his  flock  of  refugees  to  the  shore 
of  the  Bosphorus  where  he  remained  during  the  war. 

It  would  clearly  then  have  been  a  miracle  if  in  1853  the 
Tsar  had  spared  the  two  Popovtsy  prelates  who  bravely  stood 
their  ground  on  the  Lower  Danube,  and  he  did  not.  Both  of 
them  were  arrested  by  the  advancing  Russian  army,  deported 
and,  on  the  strange  ground  that  they  were  absconding  Russian 
subjects,  imprisoned  in  the  Spaso-Euthimiev  monastery  at 
Suzdal.  At  the  end  of  the  war  the  Popovtsy  through  the 
Turkish  Government,  and  with  the  sympathy  of  Napoleon  III, 
though  not,  apparently,  of  the  British  Government,  interested 
himself  in  their  fate,  but  in  vain;  and  the  settlers  persuaded 
Arcadius  Shaposhnikov  to  leave  the  Bosphorus  and  come  to 
them  as  Slav-bishop,  while  AHpius  the  Bishop  of  Tulcha  was 
replaced  by  the  lay-brother  of  Arcadius,  Justin,  a  native  of  the 
Volokolamski  district  of  the  Moscow  Government,  a  wise, 
temperate  and  learned  man. 

This  assured  the  future  of  the  Popovtsy  hierarchy  in  Turkey. 
For  the  service  of  the  20,000  of  them  settled  in  Moldavia  and 
Wallachia  Ambrose  ordained  as  bishop  a  pope  named  Nice- 
phorus  who  had  his  seat  at  Jassy.  Subsequently  one  Onuph- 
rius  was  made  suffragan  of  Braila  to  attend  to  the  congregation 
in  that  neighbourhood.  In  1853  they  obtained  a  bishop  of 
their  own,  Arcadius,  with  his  see  at  Vasluya  in  Moldavia. 
He  was  a  native  of  Saratov  and  a  learned  fanatic  who  ordained 
a  great  many  priests.  To  begin  with  the  Turkish  Govern- 
ment was  somewhat  severe  on  the  Raskolniks  of  Moldavia  and 
Wallachia,  and  Arcadius  had  to  go  about  his  diocese  in  secret. 
Probably  the  Porte  suspected  these  fugitives  from  Russia  of 
being  Russian  agents.  After  the  Crimean  War,  when  Rumania 
received  independence  under  Prince  Kuza,  the  protege  of 
Napoleon,  they  were  more  liberally  dealt  with  and  enjoyed 
complete  rehgious  freedom.  Their  prelate  Ai-cadius  was 
treated  by  the  civil  authorities  with  all  the  respect  due  to  his 
position;  and  when  the  metropoUtan  of  Jassy  complained  of 
the  presence  of  a  schismatic  prelate  in  his  diocese,  the  Govern- 


144  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

ment  told  him  curtly  that  Rumania  was  a  free  country;  and 
in  1860  Arcadius  was  officially  recognized  as  Archbishop  of 
Moldavia.  It  is  pleasant  to  think  that  the  hierarchy  of  Bielo- 
Krinits  so  completely  succeeded  in  the  nearer  East.  It  was 
a  triumph  at  once  of  Austria  and  of  rehgious  hberty.  The 
Rumanian  Government  also  deserved  much  credit. 

In  Russia  proper  the  Bielo-Krinits  hierarchy  was  also  a 
success  in  spite  of  governmental  opposition  and  of  the  doubts 
entertained  by  a  few  of  the  Popovtsy,  notably  by  the  runaway 
pope  Paul  of  Tula,  as  to  Ambrose's  baptism.  Gerontius  had 
first  carried  the  news  into  Russia  of  the  episcopal  ordination 
of  Ambrose  and  Cyril,  and  the  congregations  of  Rogozh  and 
Kerzhen  under  the  influence  of  the  Rakhmanovs  received  it 
with  enthusiasm,  and  sent  two  priests  in  disguise,  Borisov  and 
Zhigarev,  to  Bielo-Krinits  to  obtain  holy  chrism.  In  January, 
1849,  Cyril  consecrated  as  bishop  of  Simbirsk  Sophronius,  in 
the  world  Stephan  Trifonov  Zhirov,  a  peasant  of  Maloyaroslav 
and  afterwards  a  citizen  of  Moscow,  whose  business  had  been 
to  smuggle  fugitive  priests  to  their  destinations.  He  was  now 
appointed  head  of  the  Russian  Popovtsy.  Ivanovski  accuses 
him  of  having  been  a  rapacious  brigand,  selhng  ordinations, 
exacting  from  his  popes  in  Moscow  half  their  pay  and  more 
still  from  the  country  ones.  Perhaps  this  was  the  reason 
why  in  1853  his  congregation  removed  him  to  the  see  of  Sim- 
birsk and  obtained  in  his  stead  a  new  prelate  Antony,  who  had 
been  a  Bezpopovets  of  the  Thedosyevski  commimion,  and  whose 
name  in  the  world  was  Andrei  Larionov  Shutov. 

In  1855  a  see  of  Saratov  was  founded  under  a  bishop  Athana- 
sius,  who  had  been  a  merchant.  In  1856  were  created  sees  in 
Perm  and  Kazan  and  Kolomna,  in  1857  a  see  for  the  Caucasus. 

In  fact  within  twelve  years  the  Austrian  hierarchy  spread  all 
over  Russia,  ten  sees  in  all  being  founded  and  priests  ordained 
everywhere.  In  Moscow  a  supreme  board  of  control  was 
established  for  the  transaction  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  affairs 
of  the  sect.  It  consisted,  however,  too  exclusively  of  bishops 
and  priests,  and  for  that  reason  aroused  the  jealousy  of  some  of 
the  laity,  who  petitioned  the  Tsar  to  allow  runaway  popes  to 
minister  to  them  by  way  of  healthy  competition  with  those  of 


THE  DISPERSION  145 

Austrian  origin.  The  layman  party  was  known  as  the  Vino- 
kurovski.  In  opposition  Paphnutius,  Bishop  of  Kolomna, 
petitioned  the  Tsar  to  recognize  the  existing  Popovtsy  clergy 
as  Alexander  I  had  done  in  1822;  this  he  was  not  likely  to  do, 
inasmuch  as  the  Austrian  clergy,  at  any  rate  outside  Russia, 
were  accused  of  refusing  in  their  liturgy  to  offer  up  prayers 
for  the  Tsar. 

About  the  year  1860  the  Raskol  took  root  in  London  among 
emigrants  headed  by  Herzen  and  Kelsiev,  who  took  in  hand 
there  the  pubhcation  of  the  reports  concerning  the  Old  beUevers 
collected  in  the  course  of  various  inquisitions  by  the  Russian 
Government.  The  firm  of  Paul  Trubner  pubUshed  five  vol- 
umes of  these  between  1860  and  1870;  it  is  to  be  regretted  that 
the  Enghsh  Universities  took  no  pains  under  the  Copyright 
Act  to  acquire  copies  of  documents  so  precious  for  the  historian. 
Copies,  however,  are  in  the  Widener  Library  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and  in  the  British  Museum.  Paphnutius  of  Kolomna 
also  tried  to  found  in  London  a  school  and  chiu^ch  for  his  co- 
religionists, a  seminary  for  the  training  of  missionaries  and  a 
Russian  press.  But  the  emigrants  there  offered  very  poor  soil 
in  which  to  try  and  plant  his  faith.  They  were,  and  still  are 
for  the  most  part,  people  who,  as  far  as  religion  is  concerned, 
have  been  completely  sterilized  by  contact  with  the  orthodox 
Church  of  their  native  land. 

In  1863  the  Russian  Government  began  to  tolerate  the  Bielo- 
Krinits  clergy,  only  continuing  to  punish  converts  and  repress 
all  pubhc  manifestations  of  the  sect.  In  1908,  according  to 
Palmieri  (p.  421),  the  Bielo-Krinits  hierarchy  numbered 
fifteen  bishops,  twelve  governing  dioceses,  and  three  emeriti. 
Their  archbishop  resided  in  Moscow,  and  bishops  resided  at 
Izmail,  Kazan,  Perm,  Uralsk,  the  Caucasus,  Smolensk,  Samara, 
Tomsk,  Nizhni-Novgorod,  Petersbm-g.  Their  Synod  meets 
once  or  twice  a  year,  when  all  bishops  must  attend  or,  if  sick, 
send  substitutes.  The  Synod  nominates  bishops  to  vacant  sees; 
the  archbishop  can  judge  of  complaints  against  them,  found  new 
sees,  and  settle  controversies  of  an  ecclesiastical  character.  In 
each  see  there  exists  a  consultative  house  of  convocation  open 
to  priests  and  laity.     In  1861  this  Russian  Popovtsy  church 


146  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

declared  itself  autokephalous  and  independent  of  Bielo-Krinits. 
With  this  the  Russian  Government  hampered  communica- 
tions; moreover  it  was  a  monkish  settlement  and  ill-qualified 
on  that  account  alone  to  exercise  jurisdiction  in  Russia. 
Since  Russian  orthodox  publicists  continued  to  deny  that  the 
Bielo-Krinits  ordinations  were  vaUd,  the  Popovtsy  appealed  in 
1875,  1892  and  1896  to  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  to 
recognize  their  orders.  In  1899  a  commission  was  appointed 
there  to  study  the  matter,  which  reported  that  the  MetropoH- 
tan  of  Serajevo  was  not  by  the  mere  fact  of  his  quitting  Con- 
stantinople disqualified  to  administer  as  a  bishop  ecclesiastical 
censures  and  canonical  punishments.  This  was  a  tacit  recog- 
nition of  the  Austrian  hierarchy  by  the  supreme  Greek  ortho- 
dox Patriarch,  and  Pobedonostsev  when  he  heard  of  the 
decision  was  greatly  disturbed.  Since  the  proclamation  of 
liberty  of  conscience  on  April  17th,  1905,  the  Popovtsy  have 
redoubled  their  energy,  and  in  a  Synod  held  on  August  25th 
of  that  year  decreed  that  that  day  should  be  for  ever  feasted 
as  a  holy  day  in  their  Church. 

The  General  Character  of  the  Popovtsy 

In  their  rehgious  convictions,  remarks  Uzov,  the  Popovtsy 
are  closer  than  the  rest  to  the  orthodox  Church,  their  relation 
to  which  is  well  set  forth  in  a  'petition'  written  in  the  name  of 
the  Uniats  and  circulating  from  hand  to  hand  in  manuscript 
among  the  Popovtsy.  In  the  words  of  this  document  Ortho- 
doxy is  not  CathoUc  Orthodoxy  but  only  "a  Russian  Nikonian, 
Muscovite,  Synodalist,  fiscal  system,  based  on  the  use  of  three 
fingers  and  on  the  withershins  form  of  procession."  "Such 
orthodoxy  outrages  Apostohc  orthodoxy,  because  it  is  naught 
else  than  a  botched  and  retouched  ceremonial,  in  other  words 
a  sort  of  rituaUstic  faith,  an  ignorant  condemnation  of  the  old 
national  ritual  customs  of  the  Church,  is,  in  a  word,  Greek 
rituahsm."  "Orthodoxy,  so  far  as  we  mean  thereby  antago- 
nism to  the  old  rituahsm,  is  no  more  than  slavish  belief  in 
ritual,  belief  in  the  dogmatic  importance  of  certain  ceremonial 
details;  it  involves  the  principle  of  ritualist  exclusiveness  or 
the   restriction   of   orthodox   opinion   exclusively   to   certain 


THE  DISPERSION  147 

ceremonial  details.  Hence  the  clownish  condemnation  by  a 
supreme  pastor  (Nikon)  of  ceremonial  usages  consecrated  by 
age-long  usage.  And,  lastly  it  raises  to  the  rank  of  dogmas 
mere  peculiarities  of  Greek  ritual.  Orthodoxy  is  just  one  of 
the  sects  into  which  the  Russian  Church  has  fallen  asunder, 
a  sect  which  lays  stress  on  the  necessity  for  the  Russian  Church 
of  Greek  ritual."  "The  Raskol  (by  this  word,  which  signifies 
religious  dissidence,  the  Raskolniks  mean  the  Orthodox  Church) 
is  an  apostasy  on  the  part  of  the  Supreme  Shepherd  (i.e., 
Nikon)  from  the  usages  and  ceremonies  or  rites  elaborated  by 
the  Church  of  our  fathers;  it  is  antagonistic  to  the  spirit  and 
traditions  of  the  Holy  Apostolic  Church,  and  has  tyrannically 
usurped  the  prerogative  of  ordaining  such  rites  and  usages 
in  our  Church;  it  stands  for  ritualist  intolerance,  iniquitous 
expulsion  from  the  Church  and  persecution  of  those  who  cling 
to  older  rituals  and  older  custom.  It  is  not  the  Holy  Catholic 
and  ApostoHc  Church  moulded  by  councils  and  commemorated 
in  the  symbol  of  faith;  it  is  not  even  a  Russian  Church;  it  is 
merely  an  archpastorate  illegal  in  its  procedm'e,  and  circum- 
scribed by  a  Synod  whose  members  are  appointed  by  the  Gov- 
ernment itself."  "What  can  we  say,"  write  the  Popovtsy, 
"of  a  Church  which,  it  is  pretended,  is  invincible,  because  it 
rests  upon  the  support  and  sword  of  the  powers  of  the  earth? 
What  has  it  to  do  with  the  Truth  when  it  resorts,  not  to 
persuasion  in  a  spirit  of  evangelical  gentleness,  but  to  civil 
statutes,  to  influences  of  which  the  flesh  alone  is  sensible,  to 
fetters  and  prison  cell?  Eternal  Truth  abhors  such  arguments, 
disdains  to  subserve  and  stoop  to  methods  as  vulgar  as  they 
are  sanguinary.  Truth  has  power  in  herself  to  conquer  all 
who  think ;  the  lie,  on  the  contrary,  because  its  authority  only 
rests  on  the  violence  of  a  despotism  which  fawns  on  it,  is 
beholden  to  external  might  and  must  approve  all  its  measures. 
The  methods  upon  which  the  domination  of  the  new  rituahsm 
is  built  and  reposes  are  good  evidence  of  its  inward  insuffi- 
ciency." 

These  are  noble  words,  all  the  more  striking  when  we  bear 
in  mind  that  they  were  penned  in  a  Russia  still  sunk  in  Cim- 
merian darkness,  and  anticipate  the  dawn  by  at  least  two  hun- 


148  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

dred  years.  They  might  very  well  have  been  addressed  by 
Sir  Thomas  More  to  his  sovereign.  But  we  must  not  forget 
that  it  was  the  Pope  of  Rome  who  sent  to  Henry  VIII,  along 
with  the  title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith,  not  a  copy  of  the 
Gospel,  but  a  sword. 

"Is  it  the  Raskol,"  ask  the  petitioners,  ''that  stands  fast  or 
if  it  does  move,  then  only  along  the  path  of  hand-in-hand  exam- 
ination and  consent, —  or  is  it  the  man  who  after  overthrowing 
the  age-long  decisions  of  our  Church  hurls  recriminations  at  us, 
blocks  our  path  with  lies  and  calumnies,  vomits  against  us 
curses  and  anathemas,  destroys  all  liberty  of  conviction,  insults 
the  people  in  their  most  sacred  feelings  of  attachment  and  ven- 
eration for  all  that  concerns  the  Church  of  our  ancestors, 
thereby  bringing  ruin  on  all?"  ''Old  rituaUsm  in  itself,  in  its 
own  conception,  is  neither  heresy  nor  Raskol  (dissent),  but 
above  all  things  faith  in  a  piety  that  reflects  our  ancestral  and 
national  holiness;  and  so  far  forth  it  is  the  legitimate  and  justi- 
fied protest  of  the  people,  of  the  veritable  flesh  and  blood  of  the 
Church,  the  guardian  of  the  reUgion  of  our  sires  against  the 
wilful  bias  entertained  by  the  Russian  Supreme  Shepherd 
(Nikon)  in  favour  of  aUen  rite  and  usage,  to  the  outraging  of  all 
who  love  their  country, —  it  is  a  protest  against  his  autocracy, 
against  his  pretensions  to  dictate  to  us  our  conscientious  con- 
victions, a  protest  against  his  efforts  to  import  into  the  practice 
of  the  Russian  Church  the  disciphne  of  Papistry."  Old  ritual- 
ism then  is  'popular  orthodoxy.'  "Our  supreme  pastorate  by 
foisting  on  us  a  monkish  disciphne  and  subservience  to  a  con- 
ventual 'rule'  in  what  appertains  to  the  rites  and  usages  of 
our  Church,  and  by  lording  it  in  practice  over  ceremonials  and 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  has  by  brute  force  introduced  in  our 
national  Church  Greek  ritualism  instead  of  the  old  ancestral 
rituaUsm,  so  despoiUng  the  people  and  its  clergy  of  their  right 
to  a  voice  in  the  affairs  of  the  Church  and  in  the  control  of 
matters  of  faith  and  ritual,  arrogating  to  itself  alone  the  role  of 
Church,  nay  more  of  the  ApostoUc  Church  and  of  its  infalli- 
biUty.  In  all  these  respects  our  Supreme  pastorate  has 
dechned  from  the  spirit  and  traditions  of  the  Holy  ApostoUc 
Church,  has  faUen  into  LatinismJ' 


THE  DISPERSION  149 

Regarding  the  anathema  pronounced  against  the  Raskol  in 
the  Council  of  1666,  the  petitioners  speak  thus:  "This  condem- 
nation was  pronounced  by  the  supreme  pastor  (Nikon)  alone 
in  despite  of  the  Russian  Church  itself,  in  other  words,  in 
despite  of  the  people  who  are  the  very  flesh  and  blood  of  the 
Church  and  guardians  of  its  piety.  And  as  the  supreme  pas- 
torate does  not  of  itself  and  alone  constitute  the  Church  in  its 
true  sense,  so  this  condemnation  was  not  only  not  pronounced 
by  the  Apostohc  Church,  but  not  even  by  the  Russian.  By 
consequence  it  is  not  vahd,  because  it  is  no  expression  of  the 
Church's  own  convictions." 

We  are  reminded,  as  we  read  the  above,  of  TertuUian's 
noble  plea  for  the  rights  of  conscience,  when  he  wrote  that  the 
Christian  Chiu-ch  is  not  a  numerus  episcoporum,  a  mere  tale 
of  bishops. 

"The  Apostohc  Church,"  continued  the  petitioners,  "has 
never  invested,  nor  now  invests,  ritual  with  the  unchange- 
abihty  of  dogma,  nor  conceded  to  it  an  ecumenically  binding 
uniformity;  but  each  particular  Church  according  to  the 
measure  of  its  independence,  has  been  allowed  to  construct 
its  own  ordinances  and  ceremonies,  customs  and  rites,  as  suits 
the  age,  the  position  and  the  spirit  of  the  people."  "A  decision 
in  questions  of  faith,"  they  add,  "indisputably  belongs  to  the 
supreme  pastor  —  yet  is  not  given  to  him  apart  from  the  con- 
sent of  those  he  shepherds ;  for  in  antiquity  the  consent  of  the 
people  was  declared  by  the  presence  at  the  councils  of  its  repre- 
sentatives in  the  persons  of  rulers  and  senate.  In  questions 
then  of  mere  ritual,  no  decisions  are  vahd  and  effective  without 
the  mutual  consent  of  the  Supreme  Shepherd  and  of  his 
flock."  1 

"In  respect  of  Church  Government  it  is  clear  to  all  that  the 
single  head  of  Holy  Church  is  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  but  in 
the  code  of  rules  of  the  Russian  Church  it  is  affirmed  that  the 
head  of  the  all-Russian  Church  is  the  Emperor  of  Russia. . .  " 
"And  a  meeting  of  bishops  is  convened  not  in  the  form  of  a 
Council,  but  at  the  arbitrary  will  of  a  member  of  the  world, 
which    imphes  nothing    less  than    debasement."     "Similarly 

1  Strannik,  1866,  No.  3,  art.  of  Tverdynski,  pp.  90-110. 


150  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

there  are  selected  for  the  priesthood  not  men  known  for  the 
purity  of  their  Hves,  but  youthful  domestics  who  have  not 
attained  the  canonical  age,  who  are  not  graced  with  good  works, 
and  have  as  yet  no  knowledge  of  the  seductions  of  life,  men 
unknown  for  goodness  of  character  to  the  parishioners.  How 
can  such  persons  feed  Christ's  flock?" 

"And  who  is  there  in  the  all-Russian  Church  to  deal  with 
dogmas  and  faith?  According  to  the  example  set  by  the 
Apostles,  we  ought  to  deal  with  them  in  a  council,  but  in  this 
Church  what  councils  are  there?  A  Synod  held  under  an 
officer's  commands  can  only  manage  affairs  of  the  outer 
world." 

''We,"  say  the  Raskolniks,  ''recognize  a  single  head,  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  directors  of  the  Church  we  recognize 
such  bishops  as  will  govern  it  not  as  autocrats,  but  in  accord- 
ance with  the  rules  of  the  holy  councils;  not  applying  the 
holy  canons  merely  at  their  good  pleasure,  but  in  accordance 
with  concihary  deliberations  concerning  them;  and  among  us 
bishops  are  chosen  not  at  the  good  pleasure  of  any  and  every- 
one, but  by  a  council  from  among  respectable  men,  known  for 
their  zeal  for  the  faith  and  for  the  purity  of  their  hves,  and  in 
the  same  way  the  presbyters."  ^ 

^  Hegumen  Parthenius,  The  Spiritual  Sword,  pp.  27-44. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  OR  PRIESTLESS  SECT 

The  Various  Settlements  of  the  Bezpopovtsy 

1.  In  Kostroma  and  the  Viaznikov  region  of  the  Vladimir 
Government.  Kapiton  led  this  colony  of  which  the  members 
were  at  first  known  as  Kapitonians.  He  was  a  native  of  the 
village  of  Danilovskoye  in  the  uyezd  or  district  of  Kostroma  and 
became  a  monk  in  the  Kolesnik  hermitage.  IlUterate,  he 
gathered  about  him  followers  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Michael 
Theodorovitch,  attracted  by  his  asceticism  which  discarded  all 
sustenance  except  bread,  berries  and  fruit.  He  eschewed,  even 
on  the  great  feasts,  butter,  cheese  and  fish;  and  he  encouraged 
his  admirers  to  paint  onions  and  eat  them  instead  of  Easter 
eggs.  To  escape  the  Government  when  the  persecution  of  the 
Raskol  began  he  quitted  Kolesnik  and  sought  refuge  in  the 
Viaznikov  forests,  already  full  of  rehgious  fugitives.  These 
he  organized  and  ministered  to,  and  in  spite  of  ukases  and 
soldiers  died  there  in  peace.  One  of  his  followers,  a  peasant, 
named  Podreshetnikov  founded  near  Kostroma  in  the  Kine- 
shemski  and  Reshemski  regions  a  community  whose  lay  mem- 
bers boldly  performed  their  own  rites  of  baptism,  penitence 
and  eucharist,  each  for  his  own  family. 

2.  In  Siberia.  Thither  five  disciples  of  Avvakum  fled. 
The  most  prominent  of  them  was  Oska  (Joseph)  Astomen 
from  Kazan,  an  Armenian  convert  to  orthodoxy.  Banished 
in  1660  to  the  Yenisei  he  spread  Raskol  tenets  there  for  24 
years;  but  when  summoned  in  1684  to  Tobolsk  by  Metro- 
politan Paul  of  Siberia  he  pretended  to  repent  and  died  there 
in  the  Znamenski  Monastery  in  1693.  Some  1700  of  his  fol- 
lowers, led  by  one  of  his  successors,  Vaska  or  Basil  Shaposhnik 
burned  themselves  to  escape  the  cruelty  of  the  Government. 

3.  In  the  Novgorod  and  Pskov  Country.  Here,  as  also  in 
parts  of  Sweden  and  Poland,  the  Bezpopovtsy  came  to  be  known 

151 


152  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

as  the  sect  of  Theodosius.  In  1682,  there  was  a  great  exodus 
from  Novgorod  into  Swedish  territory,  whither  one  Timoshka 
had  ah-eady  fled  with  fifty  families  to  Narva.  There  in  1692 
Ivan  of  Kolonma,  himself  a  dissident,  proposed  to  the  settlers 
to  return  to  orthodoxy  and  Theodosius  Vasilev  was  sent 
from  Novgorod  to  check  the  backshders,  who  at  a  Raskol 
council  in  1694  were  excommunicated.  In  the  same  council 
were  condenmed  the  improprieties  inseparable  from  the 
attempt  of  men  and  women  to  live  together  as  monks  and  nuns. 
Presently  Theodosius  left  the  Swedish  settlement  and  founded 
one  of  his  own  in  Poland.  He  was  related  to  the  Boyar  Urusov 
and  his  fame  attracted  many  to  his  camp.  He  agreed  with 
the  rest  of  the  Bezpopovtsy  in  most  things,  e.  g.  in  teaching 
that  Anti-Christ  was  reigning,  in  rejecting  all  priesthood,  in 
rebaptizing  the  orthodox;  but  he  differed  in  respect  of  how 
the  title  of  Christ  should  be  written  on  crosses  and  he  recog- 
nized as  valid  ties  of  wedlock  contracted  by  people  in  orthodox 
chiu-ches  before  they  joined  the  Raskol.  On  the  other  hand  he 
was  stricter  with  his  food  taboos  than  the  sect  of  the  Pomorians, 
for  he  would  not  permit  food  bought  in  the  market  to  be  eaten 
without  being  previously  cleansed  by  prayers  and  prostrations. 
Harried  by  the  Poles  he  at  one  time  returned  to  Russia  and 
settled  in  the  district  of  Velikoluts  in  the  Vyazovski  volost. 
After  arrest  and  imprisonment  he  died  at  Novgorod  in  1711. 
His  followers  settled  at  Ryapin  in  the  district  of  Yurya  Livon- 
ski.  There  his  two  communities  flourished  greatly,  and  over- 
flowed into  Novgorod,  Yaroslavl,  Staraya  Russa,  Pskov,  Riga, 
Austria,  Prussia  and  Poland.  One  of  their  counts  against  the 
Pomorian  sectaries  was  that  the  latter  from  fear  of  the  Russian 
general  Samarin,  who  raided  them  in  1735,  consented  to  pray 
for  the  royal  family. 

4.  Moscow.  The  chief  centre  of  the  Theodosiev  sect  was 
founded  in  Moscow  in  1771  by  a  merchant  there.  Ilia  Alex- 
sieievitch  Kovylin,  a  clever  and  practical,  if  iUiterate,  man. 
It  was  the  year  of  a  great  plague,  and  Kovyhn  got  leave  to  start 
a  hospital  and  cemetery  for  the  poor,  the  sick  and  the  dying, 
at  Cherkizov  on  the  River  Khapilovok  outside  the  city.  His 
fellow  sectaries,  mmaerous  in  the  city,  loyally  assisted,  and 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  153 

thousands  resorted  to  his  hospice  to  be  fed  and  solaced.  There 
in  his  chapel  he  prayed  with  them  before  the  old  ikons,  held 
the  legitimate  services  of  every  kind,  and  preached  to  willing 
ears  that  the  plague  was  God's  judgment  on  Moscow  for 
forsaking  the  ancient  faith.  "  The  credulous,"  writes  Macarius, 
archbishop  of  Kharkov,  ''weakened  by  hunger  and  disease, 
bhndly  submitted  to  the  voice  of  the  lying  teacher,  and  were 
rebaptized  in  the  nearest  tub."  Many  left  him  their  fortunes 
and  the  hundred  horses  that  the  philanthropic  merchant  used 
ordinarily  for  carting  about  his  bricks  (he  was  a  brick  merchant) 
were  busy  transporting  the  goods  bequeathed  to  him  and  his 
associate,  Zenkov.  One  asks  what  was  the  Orthodox  Church, 
of  which  Macarius  till  lately  was  a  chief  ornament,  doing  in 
order  to  keep  pace  with  Kovyhn. 

The  new  refuge  at  Moscow  was  dedicated  to  the  Transfigu- 
ration, and  before  1800  it  contained  500  inmates,  and  3000 
adherents  in  Moscow  frequented  the  services  held  there.  In 
the  school  were  200  pupils.  Gradually  other  Theodosiev  settle- 
ments affiUated  themselves  to  it,  e.g.  in  Novgorod,  Petersburg, 
Yaroslavl,  the  upper  Volga,  Riga,  Tula,  Saratov,  Nizhninovgorod, 
Kazan,  Simbirsk  on  the  Don,  Kuban,  Starodub.  All  these  pro- 
cured from  it  their  overseers,  choristers,  service  books,  ikons, 
and  sent  in  return  ample  offerings  year  by  year.  A  triennial 
meeting  w^as  held  there  for  deciding  all  contested  points  of 
faith  or  disciphne. 

5.  The  Pomor}  The  first  Colony  in  the  Olonets  region 
was  founded  by  Paul,  bishop  of  Kolomna,  and  its  history 
survives  in  a  book  written  by  one  of  its  leaders,  Ivan  PhiUppov, 
in  1774.  Paul  was  succeeded  by  Dositheos,  hegumen  of  the 
Nikolski  Besedovski  Monastery  three  versts  from  Tikhvin  on 
the  Yaroslav  road  founded  by  Vasih  loannovich  in  1510  on  the 
spot  where  the  Virgin  and  St.  Nicholas  appeared  to  the  monk 
George. 

One  Cornelius  succeeded  him.  Early  in  the  siege  of  Solo- 
vets,  and  stUl  more  after  its  disastrous  termination,  colonies 
of  refugees  from  it  settled  in  various  parts  of  Pomor.     Thus 

1  Pomor  means  'sea  board';  hence  in  Germany  Pomerania  means  the  shore  of 
the  Baltic,  in  Russia  it  means  the  shore  of  the  Arctic. 


154  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  deacon  Ignatius,  after  a  halt  near  Kargopol,  fled  to  the  isle 
of  Pal  in  Lake  Onega,  and  was  there  joined  by  EmeHan  Ivanov 
from  Povyenets.  In  Sept.  1787  they  won  over  to  the  cause  the 
Paleostrov  monastery,  an  ancient  foundation  of  the  twelfth 
century,  situated  on  the  Pal  island  in  lake  Onega,  15  versts 
from  the  village  of  Shung,  and  defied  the  Novgorod  authori- 
ties for  a  while,  but  in  March  1687  were  reduced  to  burning 
themselves,  monastery  and  all.  Ignatius  and  2700  of  his  fol- 
lowers perished  in  the  flames,  but  Ivanov  escaped.  Before 
long  the  latter,  reinforced  by  another  monk  of  Solovets, 
Germanus,  again  obtained  possession  of  Paleostrov,  and 
defied  the  Government  for  nine  weeks,  when  they  were  over- 
powered and  500  of  them  burned  alive.  A  third  Solovets 
monk  in  July  1693  seized  the  church  of  Pudozh,  reconsecrated 
it  after  its  contamination  by  Nikon,  and  converted  the  villagers 
to  his  cause.  The  Government  sent  a  force,  and  800  Raskol- 
niki  burned  themselves  alive  rather  than  yield.  * 

On  the  river  Vyg,  the  chief  settlement  was  formed  by  the 
four  Raskolniki  saints,  Daniel,  Peter,  Andrew  and  Simeon, 
with  the  cooperation  of  the  Cornelius  and  Ignatius  already  men- 
tioned. Of  these  Daniel  Vikulich  was  a  church  scribe  of  the 
Shumski  parish  and  teacher  of  the  Raskol  hegumen  Dositheus. 
After  escaping  from  Paleostrov  he  joined  an  already  existing 
community  of  fugitives  on  the  Vyg.  These  with  the  aid  of 
the  Elder  Cornelius  he  organized  about  1695  into  a  regular 
skete  or  monastic  community,  of  which  he  remained  abbot 
till  1734.  In  1692  he  had  already  been  joined  by  Peter  Proko- 
piev,  a  convert  of  Ignatius,  who  being  a  learned  canonist  and 
singer  was  made  ecclesiarch  and  conducted  the  cult  until  he 
died  in  1727.  But  of  the  Vyg  leaders,  Andrew  and  Simeon 
Dionysievich  (Denisov)  were  the  two  most  famous.  They 
belonged  to  the  princely  family  of  the  Mushetski  of  Novgorod, 
and  took  over  with  them  their  sister  Salomona,  who  later  on 
headed  a  female  convent.  Andrew  presided  over  the  monas- 
tery 35  years,  until  1730,  in  association  with  Daniel  Vikulich. 
Disguised  as  a  merchant  he  conducted  long  missionary  expedi- 
tions to  Kiev  and  all  over  Russia.  His  brother  Simeon  was 
less  of  a  practical  genius,  but  accompanied  his  brother  in  his 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  155 

peregrinations,  and  in  the  course  of  them  he  made  himself 
an  expert  in  rhetoric,  grammar,  singing  and  philosophy,  writ- 
ing many  books  in  the  library  he  formed  inside  the  monastery. 
He  succeeded  his  brother  as  abbot  in  1730  and  survived  him 
ten  years.  The  Monastery  was  given  the  name  of  the 
Theophany. 

At  its  foundation  in  1695  the  Vyg  settlement  comprised  only 
40  men  and  women,  who  built  wooden  huts,  a  granary  and  a 
refectory.  The  sexes,  as  is  usual  in  Russia,  sat  apart  in  church 
services.  Soon  entire  families  joined  them,  the  convent  had 
to  be  enlarged,  and  a  dividing  wall  across  it  separated  the  sexes. 
Presently  a  special  convent  was  built  for  women,  on  the  River 
Leksi,  called  of  the  Cross,  and  presided  over  by  Salomona,  who 
died  1735.  About  1703  fresh  settlements  began  to  group  them- 
selves around  the  original  one  with  chapels  of  their  own.  At 
first  Cornelius,  as  we  saw,  conducted  reUgious  w^orship,  bap- 
tized, or  rebaptized  his  new  monks  and  nuns.  Later  on  he  was 
assisted  in  this  by  the  Elders  Paphnutius,  Paul,  Barlaam  and 
others.  There  was  a  corps  of  singers,  psalmodists,  cellarers, 
kanonarchs;  and  matins,  vespers,  vigils  of  feasts  and  other 
services  were  duly  held  in  the  settlements.  In  the  refectories 
religious  books  were  read  out  loud  at  meals.  All  were  kept 
busy,  hewing  wood,  planting  fields,  tending  the  flocks  and 
herds,  working  the  corn  ixdlls  and  fishing. 

The  Archangel  climate  is  harsh,  and  occasionally  the  harvests 
failed.  Then  many  would  flee  back  to  the  province  of  Nov- 
gorod, and  Andrew  and  Simeon  would  set  off  to  collect  food  and 
alms  in  Pskov  and  elsewhere.  In  1710  they  bought  a  large 
pasture  16  versts  square  near  Kargopol  on  the  River  Chazhenga 
and  built  huts  there  for  shepherds  and  tillers  of  the  soil.  In 
time  they  also  began  to  eke  out  their  scanty  living  with  trade 
in  Petersburg  and  elsewhere,  and  their  dealers  returning  from 
Russia  brought  with  them  old  books  and  gospels  from  sacristies 
and  libraries  containing  the  handwriting  of  princes  and  upper 
clergy  of  an  earlier  day,  together  with  crosses,  ikons  and  church 
vessels  of  the  older  fashions  which  the  Raskol  venerated.  Nor 
were  they  behind  hand  in  controversy,  as  the  Responses  of 
Andrew  and  Simeon  prove.     They  compiled  a  new  martyrology 


156  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

for  church  use  containing  the  lives  of  martyrs  newly  slain  by 
the  Russian  Government.  They  had  schools  for  the  education 
of  missionaries  and  others  who  spread  their  tenets  in  the  city 
and  country  side.  Before  1800  there  were  2000  males  and  1000 
females  in  the  Vyg  monasteries. 

An  offshoot  of  the  Pomorians  was  founded  by  a  monk  Philip 
in  1737  some  versts  away  from  the  Vygovski  settlement.  PhiUp 
was  a  deserter  from  the  Strelets  force  in  Moscow,  in  civil  life 
named  Photius.  It  is  said  that  after  the  death  of  Daniel  Vykulin 
he  desired  to  succeed  him.  Disappointed  in  his  hopes  he  began 
a  skete  of  his  own  with  fifty  famiUes,  assailing  the  Vygovskis 
because  they  had  been  terrorized  by  Samarin  into  praying 
for  the  Tsar.  Attacked  by  Samarin  thirty-eight  of  the  Philip 
community  burned  themselves  aUve,  and  in  1742  and  1765, 
when  Phihp's  sect  had  spread  far  and  wide  in  the  Archangel 
Government,  in  Novgorod  and  in  Finland,  there  were  fresh 
burnings  on  a  much  larger  scale.  The  sect  for  its  rigour  was 
singled  out  by  the  Government  for  persecution  and  that 
explains  why  they  came  to  be  known  par  excellence  as  the  self- 
burners.  In  strength  of  numbers  this  sect  ranked  third  among 
the  Priestless  ones. 

It  was  not  the  only  offshoot  from  Vyg.  Under  the  regime 
of  Andrew  Denisov  another  colony  was  led  forth  by  a  shepherd 
of  Vyg  who  condenmed  the  use  of  money  and  passports, 
pavements  and  payment  of  the  double  poll  tax  imposed  on 
the  Old  believers  by  Peter  I.  This  sect  was  known  as  the 
Pastukhovo  or  Adamantovo;  it  respected  marriages  contracted 
in  the  orthodox  church  and,  according  to  Macarius,  deprecated 
self-burning. 

The  Stranniki 

An  incipient  reconciUation  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
XVIIIth  Century  of  the  Raskol  with  civil  society  explains  the 
fact  that  there  arose  about  that  time  among  the  Rigorists  or 
followers  of  Philip,  a  teacher  named  Euthymius  or  Eufimius,  a 
native  of  Pereyaslav  in  Poltava,  who  regarded  any  accommoda- 
tion with  normal  society,  with  State  or  Church,  as  backsliding 
and  impiety.     Pressed  into  the  army,  he  deserted  and  hid  him- 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  157 

self  first  in  Moscow,  then  in  the  PhiUpovski  sketes  of  Pomor, 
last  of  all  in  the  forests  of  the  Yaroslav  Government.  The 
time  came  when,  repelled  by  the  overfacile  compliance  of 
Philip's  sect  with  Church  and  State,  he  set  himself  seriously 
both  to  write  a  book  and  to  found  a  sect  of  his  o^vn.  He  got  to- 
gether in  the  village  of  Korovin  in  that  Government  a  number 
of  sympathizers;  and,  assuming  for  the  gathering  the  dignity 
of  a  council,  he  solenmly  condemned  other  Raskol  groups,  and 
embodied  his  complaint  in  a  work  called  The  Peroration. 
In  it  he  condenmed  the  act  of  inscribing  their  names  in  the 
registers  as  Raskolniks  as  tantamount  to  abjuring  the  name 
of  Christian  and  as  subservience  to  Antichrist.  One  who  so 
registered  himself  and  his  family  deified  the  Antichrist.  His 
philippic  against  those  who  simulated  orthodoxy  was  of  the 
sternest,  and  brings  before  us  in  a  lively  manner  the  disabilities 
to  which  dissenters  were  subjected.  They  as  good  as  admitted 
themselves,  he  says,  to  be  adherents  of  a  heretical  body,  and 
condemned  themselves  to  go  cadging  for  favours  to  the  state 
priest,  e.g.  for  the  billets  de  confession,  without  w^hich  they 
could  not  obtain  passports,  they  had  to  seek  his  permission  to 
dig  graves  for  their  dead,  to  receive  him  into  their  houses  on 
feastdays  and  give  him  alms.  Such  people,  he  writes,  have 
prostituted  their  children  to  the  Great  Russian  Church,  have 
made  their  confession  to  the  Devil,  have  disavowed  Christ, 
presented  themselves  at  an  unholy  altar  (trapeza),  bowing  and 
scraping  before  it;  they  even  invite  the  priest  to  enter  their 
houses,  when  on  festivals  he  comes  rapping  at  their  doors  and 
windows  and  calling  for  the  master  of  the  house  to  give  him 
something  for  church  purposes,  thanksgiving  offerings,  and 
the  rest;  they  debase  themselves  by  stuffing  his  bag  with 
bread,  pastries,  cakes.  What,  he  indignantly  asks,  is  all  this 
but  to  crucify  Christ  afresh,  to  pretend  to  love  heretics  and 
be  at  peace  with  them?  Piety  is  extinguished,  he  laments, 
and  impiety  reigns  everywhere.  All  the  Old  believers  had 
bowed  the  knee  to  Baal  and  no  longer  had  the  baptism  of 
Christ. 

He  accordingly  baptized  himself  a  third  time,  for  he  had  been 
first  baptized  in  the  Orthodox  Church,  next  when  he  joined  the 


158  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Philipovtsy,  and  now  in  despair  of  finding  any  real  baptism  on 
the  face  of  this  earth  he  performed  the  rite  first  on  himself  and 
then  on  his  followers;  and  he  made  it  his  principle  to  wander 
abroad  on  the  earth,  because  we  have  here  no  abiding  city. 
The  true  Christian,  he  taught,  must  either  conceal  himself  and 
flee  away,  or  wage  open  war  with  Antichrist.  He  must  be 
hterally  an  outcast  and  in  an  alien  world  break  every  tie  with 
society.  He  has  nowhere  to  lay  his  head,  but  is  a  wanderer 
(strannik),  a  fugitive  (begun),  a  stowaway. 

This  sect  has  above  all  others  distinguished  itself  by  its  fierce 
denunciations  of  the  Tsars  and  Tsardom,  and  of  the  orthodox 
priests  as  lying  prophets  of  Antichrist.  They  have  obsti- 
nately refused  to  register  themselves,  to  pay  taxes,  to  bear 
passports.  Their  doctrine  is  the  last  word  of  the  Bezpopovtsy 
against  the  regime  of  Antichrist.  Certain  of  the  sectaries  of  the 
Pomorians  who  pray  for  the  Tsar  were  careful  to  justify  their 
action  by  citing  the  precepts  of  St.  Paul  in  favour  of  praying  for 
Gentile  or  infidel  sovereigns.  So  also  the  Thedosyevtsi  or  sect 
of  Theodosius  were  careful  to  indicate  that  they  only  paid  the 
Tsar's  taxes,  because  the  New  Testament  inculcates  submission 
to  the  Powers  which  be.  The  'Wanderers',  however,  were 
guilty  of  a  very  disrespectful  comparison  of  the  Tsar  with  the 
heathen  rulers,  obedience  to  whom  was  counselled  by  the 
Apostles.  They  were  no  better  than  servants  of  the  Devil, 
but  the  Tsar  is  Satan  himself.  You  can  do  nothing  but  make 
war  on  him. 

No  permanent  community  or  society  higher  than  gypsies 
can  be  founded  on  the  mere  precept  to  wander  and  hide.  The 
early  followers  of  Jesus  soon  found  that  it  was  not  enough 
to  wait  for  the  Second  Coming,  and  that  even  to  keep  the  faith 
aUve  they  must  organize.  Euthymius'  tenets  excluded  all  idea 
of  settlement;  but  presently,  after  his  death,  when  the  bond  of 
his  strong  personality  and  preaching  was  removed,  it  became  an 
urgent  question  how  to  assure  to  his  Church  any  sort  of  stabil- 
ity or  future.  Continual  vagabondage  through  'desirable 
deserts'  afforded  no  bond  of  union,  nay  rendered  permanent 
ties  between  its  members  precarious.  A  number  of  poverty- 
stricken,  homeless  itinerant  friars  might  attract  to  themselves 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  159 

fugitive  criminals,  but  not  people  with  settled  notions  of  life 
and  anything  to  lose.  The  members  of  the  sect  therefore  met 
to  consider  whether  in  future  they  should  continue  to  wander  or 
settle  down  in  fixed  homes.  An  elder  named  Yakov  Yakovlev 
urged  that  no  one  could  be  regarded  as  a  member  who  did  not 
imitate  the  master,  but  a  lady  named  Irene,  who  had  been 
Euthymius'  companion  in  travel,  as  also  the  Elder  or  'director' 
Krainev,  proposed  a  compromise,  by  which  they  should  only 
receive  as  members  of  the  society  those  who  took  a  vow  to 
become  Stranniki  some  day,  even  if  for  the  present  they  kept 
their  homes  and  went  on  living  in  them.  After  warm  discus- 
sion the  compromise  was  accepted,  and  a  distinction  was  hence- 
forth drawn  between  imperfect  members  who  might  live  in 
town  and  village  and  only  vow  themselves  to  become  adepts  in 
the  Christian  faith  later  on,  and  those  who  pursued  the  original 
ideal  of  Euthymius  in  its  entirety.  It  was  stipulated  however 
that  those  who  lived  in  fixed  abodes  should  maintain  shelters 
or  asylums  of  refuge  for  the  true  wanderers  and  extend  their 
hospitality  to  them  whenever  they  appeared. 

The  student  of  early  Christianity  will  at  once  recognize  the 
parallelism  of  the  Strannik  society  with  the  earUest  Church. 
Ivanovski  describes  in  detail  the  life  of  concealment  led  by  the 
Strannik  missionaries  with  evident  gusto,  as  if  they  reflected 
no  discredit  on  the  persecuting  Church  of  which  he  is  so  dis- 
tinguished an  ornament.  The  refuges,  he  tells  us,  of  these 
sectaries  are  furnished  with  secret  ways  in  and  out;  they  mostly 
consist  of  underground  cellars  or  garrets  constructed  in  court- 
yards, kitchen-gardens  and  so  forth.  There  are  also  hiding 
places  for  the  missionaries  under  staircases,  in  closets,  in  cup- 
boards; sometimes  they  are  concealed  behind  walls  or  under 
the  roof,  sometimes  under  the  stove.  Whole  secret  villages  of 
Beguni  have  been  discovered,  in  which  each  house  communi- 
cated with  the  rest  by  secret  passages,  and  the  secret  entrance 
of  the  last  in  the  street  opened  into  the  garden  or  into  a  thicket 
or  somewhere  out  on  a  highroad. 

This  twofold  organization  of  the  Stranniki  into  those  who  live 
as  wandering  monks  and  those  who,  remaining  in  the  world, 
are  under  a  vow  to  become  true  wanderers  ere  they  die,  closely 


160  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

resembles  that  of  the  Cathars.  The  Elect  Cathar  cut  himself 
or  herself  off  from  the  world;  while  the  laity,  if  we  may  so  call 
them,  continued  to  live  in  the  world,  fed  and  sheltered  the  Elect, 
but  ever  cherished  the  hope  and  intention  of  being  themselves 
elected  before  they  died.  For  Election  implied  the  reception 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whereby  they  became  incarnations  of  Christ, 
Christs  themselves,  adopted  sons  of  the  Heavenly  Father.  In 
Catharism  no  doubt  there  survived  the  deferred  baptism  of  the 
early  centuries,  and  the  same  rite  has  lived  on  in  the  Catholic 
Church  in  the  form  of  extreme  unction.  The  Cathars  knew  the 
rite  under  the  name  of  Consolamentum,  or  reception  of  the 
Comforter  or  Paraclete. 

The  Stranniki  then  who  remain  in  the  world  and  maintain 
these  refuges  for  the  spiritually  perfect,  the  initiates,  are  under 
a  vow  themselves  to  adopt  the  wandering  life  before  they  die. 
In  old  age  or  in  case  of  sickness  felt  to  be  mortal  they  retire 
into  a  wood,  and  there  live  till  death  overtakes  them.  The 
excuse  for  their  disappearance  from  the  ranks  of  society  is 
usually  that  they  have  set  off  on  a  pilgrimage.  Sick  children 
are  rebaptized,  and  baptism  is  usually  performed  in  all  cases 
in  a  lake  or  a  pond,  either  because  they  have  no  fonts  or,  more 
probably,  in  deference  to  the  preference  for  living  water  so 
strong  in  the  early  Church  and  in  other  ancient  forms  of  lus- 
tration. Ivanovski  also  states, —  though  this  like  some  others 
of  his  statements  must  be  accepted  with  caution, —  that  the 
rite  of  initiation  is  often  arranged  in  a  merely  formal  and 
hypocritical  fashion.  The  relations  of  a  dying  Strannik,  he 
says,  inform  the  pohce  (in  the  last  degree  improbable!)  that  so 
and  so  is  in  hiding, —  this  in  token  of  the  fact  that  he  has  broken 
off  all  ties  and  relations  with  society.  The  sick  person  is  withal 
removed  to  a  neighbouring  house  or  into  a  hiding  place  where 
he  spends  his  time  'in  concealment  and  salutary  fear,'  till 
presently  he  is  received,  baptized  and  installed  a  'perfect' 
Strannik.     His  vocation  is  then  complete. 

The  dead  are  buried  in  obscure  places,  in  a  forest,  a  field; 
children  often  under  ploughland  or  in  kitchen-gardens.  A 
Strannik' s  grave  is  unrecognizable,  for  no  mound  ever  marks  it. 
We  are  reminded  of  the  account  of  the  recent  persecution  of  the 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  161 

Uniat  Catholics  in  the  PoUsh  province  of  Kholm  given  in  that 
dreadful  book  L'apostolat  du  Knout  published  at  Paris  in  1913 
by  the  Diocesan  Society  of  Tours.  In  Kholm  the  Catholics 
would  hide  the  fact  that  anyone  was  djdng,  and  bury  him 
secretly  in  their  gardens,  and  wait  till  they  could  get  a  Latin 
priest  to  read  their  rites  over  the  extemporized  grave.  If  it  was 
known  that  a  man  lay  sick  to  death  in  a  house,  the  agents  of  the 
Russian  Government  would  wait  round  the  house  ready  to 
burst  in  and  carry  the  corpse  off  in  triumph  to  the  'orthodox' 
Church,  there  to  be  submitted  to  'orthodox'  burial  rites. 
New-bom  children  similarly  were  torn  from  their  mothers' 
breasts  and  carried  off  to  the  Russian  Church  to  receive  '  ortho- 
dox' baptism;  and  any  but  'orthodox'  marriages  being  for- 
bidden and  repudiated  as  illegitimate  along  with  their  fruit  by 
Pobedonostzev's  law,  young  couples,  desiring  to  marry,  would 
escape  across  the  frontier  to  Crakov  in  Austrian  Poland,  and 
get  married  by  a  Latin  Priest.  By  such  means,  in  the  years 
preceding  this  war,  the  Holy  and  Orthodox  Church  of  Russia 
had  converted  as  many  as  400,000  Uniat  or  Latin  Ruthenes. 

We  have  seen  that  numbers  of  the  Priestless  Sect,  just 
because  they  regarded  marriage  as  a  sacrament,  needing  a 
priest  to  administer  it,  tried  for  a  while,  and  here  and  there, 
to  Uve  as  monks  and  nuns,  and  presently,  following  Uzov,  we 
shall  discuss  this  aspect  of  their  life  in  more  detail.  How  far 
Euthymius  revived  this  strict  ideal  in  his  sect,  is  not  clear,  but 
we  need  not  doubt  Ivanovski's  statement  that  his  adherents 
followed  monastic  usage  so  far  as  to  assume  in  their  'religion' 
monastic  names,  such  as  Niphon,  Eustathius  etc.,  and  that  they 
hved  as  monks  and  nuns  under  strict  rule,  for  violation  of  which 
rigorous  penalties  were  exacted,  especially  for  infringement  of 
the  seventh  cormnandment.  Ivanovski  states,  however,  that, 
in  spite  of  their  lofty  pretensions,  revolting  scenes  of  debauchery 
were  common  among  them,  accompanied  with  great  cruelty. 
Beginning  with  Euthymius,  every  one  of  their  leaders  or  elders 
kept  a  mistress;  and  theft,  brigandage,  even  assassination  were 
not  unknown  in  the  bosom  of  the  sect.  He  attributes  this 
partly  to  the  fact  that  many  exiled  criminals  joined  them,  no 
doubt  to  secure  shelter  under  the  cover  of  piety.     Kelsiev  in 


162  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

his  Sbornik,  vol.  IV,  288  foil.,  prints  evidence  of  such  irregulari- 
ties from  the  lips  of  members  of  the  sect,  most  of  them  rene- 
gades. But  it  is  possible  that  the  '  mistress '  of  Euthymius 
was  a  'spiritual'  wife,  a  relationship  common  though  often 
reprobated  in  the  Early  Church  from  the  time  of  St.  Paul 
onwards  for  about  four  centuries.  The  Stranniki  certainly 
regarded  marriages  contracted  before  a  Nikonian  or  orthodox 
priest  as  mere  fornication,  just  as  the  mediaeval  Cathari 
regarded   marriage   inside   the   Catholic   Church. 

Such  relationship  led  to  grave  scandals  in  the  Early  Church: 
they  could  not  do  otherwise  in  Russia  a  hundred  years  ago,  and 
one  of  the  first  questions  that  rent  asunder  the  Strannik  Society 
after  the  founder's  death  was  that  of  marriage.  The  insti- 
tution was  plainly  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  religious 
vagabondage,  of  inhabiting  neither  city  nor  village;  and  yet 
the  conditions  of  human  life  had  to  be  met,  and  in  the  sixties 
of  the  last  century  the  followers  of  Euthymius  found  them- 
selves suddenly  compelled  to  make  their  decision,  whether  or  no 
a  Strannik  after  initiation  could  or  could  not  continue  to  lead 
a  family  hfe. 

A  convert,  Nicholas  Ignatiev  Kosatkin  in  the  Government  of 
Novgorod,  had  fallen  sick  and  sought  'perfection'  ere  death 
should  overtake  him.  But  in  making  his  confession  prior  to 
being  baptized  he  avowed  no  intention  of  parting  from  his  wife, 
and  even  declared  he  would  abandon  the  sect  if  its  statutes  and 
if  scripture  were  so  interpreted.  Nevertheless  the  prior  or 
spiritual  authority,  deputed  to  '  receive '  him,  admitted  him  to 
baptism,  because  he  was  so  grievously  ill,  and  so  he  became  a 
full  member  of  the  sect.  Then  he  recovered  after  all,  but 
refused  to  abandon  his  wife  and  children,  nay,  begat  a  new  child. 
Thenceforth  he  began  a  propaganda  in  favour  of  marriage  in 
the  sect. 

He  found  an  ally  in  one  Miron  Vasilev,  and  it  was  resolved 
by  most  of  the  society  under  their  guidance  that  marriage  was 
allowable,  along  with  the  two  other  sacraments  of  baptism  and 
penance,  until  the  second  advent  —  a  sensible  conclusion. 
Forthwith  members  who  were  married  before  they  joined  the 
sect  began  to  live  together  again,  where  they  had  not  done  so 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  163 

all  along.  There  was  a  minority  however  that  held  out  against 
marriage,  and  met  the  argument  that  the  early  Christians 
allowed  it  with  the  counter  argument  that  these  only  fled  into 
the  desert  to  escape  persecution  and  hoped  to  return  when  the 
persecution  was  ended,  whereas  they,  the  Stranniki,  had  fled 
into  the  desert  for  good  and  ever,  never  meaning  to  return  and 
hve  in  an  unregenerate  world.  In  view  of  Uzov's  account  of 
the  sect  one  suspects  that  Ivanovski  somewhat  over-general- 
izes and  accepts  as  valid  and  significant  for  the  entire  sect  of 
Stranniki  events  and  quarrels  and  decisions  that  only  really 
concerned  a  section  of  it. 

There  were  other  questions  also  which  led  to  dissensions  in 
the  society,  for  example  the  trivial  one  whether  a  Strannik 
should  carry  in  his  pocket  coins  that  bore  the  stamp  of  Anti- 
christ. Euthymius  had  avoided  this  'Archimedian  problem,' 
but  one  of  his  stricter  followers  Vasili  Petrov  raised  it,  and  an 
insignificant  minority  followed  him  in  his  objection  to  money, 
and  were  known  as  the  'moneyless'  ones.  They  got  over  the 
practical  inconvenience  by  getting  novices  to  carry  money  for 
them  and  make  their  disbursements,  just  as  the  Manichean 
Elect  ones  carried  their  scruple  against  taking  life  so  far  as  to 
make  their  novices  cut  their  salads  for  them,  shriving  them 
afterwards  for  the  sin  they  had  committed.  Nicetas  Semenov, 
one  of  their  best  known  teachers,  raised  his  voice  against  such 
nonsense,  and  also  against  the  scruple  felt  against  the  use  of 
prayer  books  printed  for  the  Uniats.  These  bore  on  the  title 
page  the  imprimatur  of  the  Tsar-Antichrist  and  of  the  Holy 
synod,  and  it  was  impossible  to  procure  the  old  printed  service 
books  anterior  to  Nikon,  because  they  had  become  so  rare. 
In  a  Begun  Council  it  was  agreed  to  get  over  the  difficulty  by 
tearing  out  the  title  pages ! 

Another  cause  of  dissension  was  a  sensible  attempt  made  by 
this  same  Nicetas  Semenov  to  organize  the  society  better  and 
keep  it  more  together  by  appointing  superior  and  inferior 
clergy  in  some  locahties.  Semenov  pubhshed  a  tract  on  the 
subject,  but  was  accused  by  some  of  his  brethren  of  being  a 
second  Nikon  and  of  wishing  to  estabhsh  a  hierarchy.  His 
supporters  however  chose  him  to  be  supreme  head  or  director 


164  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  the  society.  In  the  early  church  the  episcopate  did  not  get 
the  better  of  the  itinerant  prophet  without  a  struggle,  and,  we 
may  be  sure,  some  heartburnings.  It  was  so  with  the  Stranniki ; 
thus  does  religious  history  repeat  itself. 

Latterly,  according  to  Ivanovski,  the  Strannik  elders  or 
initiates  have  compromised  with  Antichrist  in  yet  another 
matter.  In  order  to  roam  about  and  propagate  their  tenets 
with  greater  seciu-ity  they  apply  for  passports,  not  in  the 
names  they  bear  in  'rehgion,'  but  in  the  lay  names  which  they 
bore  in  the  world,  before  they  were  converted. 

The  Netovtsi  and  the  Self-Baptizers 

Macarius  and  Ivanovski  distinguish  among  the  priestless 
sectaries  who  assert  that  the  advent  of  Antichrist  has  brought 
about  the  demise  of  the  Church  with  its  priesthood  and  sacra- 
ments, the  Netovtsi  or  Nothingites,  as  a  separate  and  self- 
contained  sect  whose  members  repudiate  baptism  altogether, 
because  they  cannot  reconcile  it  with  their  consciences  that 
laymen  should  administer  it,  for  that  is  a  violation  of  the 
second  of  the  Apostolical  Canons  contained  in  the  Kormchei 
(conciliary)  Book,  which  rules  that  "those  who  snatch  at  gifts 
not  vouchsafed  to  them  offend  against  God,  as  did  the  sons  of 
Korah  and  King  Uzziah.  Not  even  a  deacon  is  worthy  to  offer 
the  Sacrifice  or  to  baptize  anyone  or  to  celebrate  the  little  or 
great  benediction." 

An  offshoot  of  the  'Nothingites'  are,  however,  the  self-bap- 
tizers,  who  get  over  the  difficulty  by  baptizing  themselves. 
Their  converts  immerse  themselves  in  a  lake  or  river,  and 
instead  of  a  priest,  as  in  the  orthodox  Church,  using  over  them 
the  formula: — "This  child  of  God  is  baptized,"  they  repeat 
over  themselves  the  words: — "I,  a  child  of  God,  baptize 
myself."  Similarly  they  repeat  over  themselves,  when  they 
marry  the  formulas: — "I  betrothe  myself,"  and  "I  crown 
myself,"  for  in  Eastern  marriages  a  crown  is  placed  on  the 
head  of  each  of  the  parties.  This  sect  sprang  up  in  the  last 
years  of  the  XVIIIth  Century,  and  flourished  exceedingly  in 
the  Saratov  Government,  according  to  Veskinski's  notice  of 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  165 

them  in  the  Orthodox  Review,  of  1864,  No.  8.  A  member  of  it, 
Timothy  Bondarev,  composed  a  work  called: — 'A  true  and 
faithful  Way  of  Salvation,'  from  which  K.  Kustodiev  in  the 
Russki  Vestnik  (for  1862,  No.  9,  p.  420)  adduces  the  views  of 
the  Sect  with  regard  to  the  history  of  reUgion,  which  views, 
as  he  says,  approximate  in  a  remarkable  degree  to  western 
rationalism. 

Bondarev  started  from  the  position  that  everything  in  the 
world  grows  old  and  decays,  and  out  of  what  has  lived  its  day 
springs  up  a  new  growth,  which  in  its  turn  will  grow  old  and 
give  way  to  new.  This  thesis  he  appUed  to  the  many  laws 
which  have  successively  been  vouchsafed  by  God  to  the  human 
race,  namely  to  those  of  Adam,  Noah,  Abraham,  Moses,  Aaron, 
Solomon,  and  lastly  to  ourselves  in  the  law  of  the  Gospel.  All 
these  revelations,  he  says,  were  given  for  everlasting  fulfilment 
unto  all  eternity,  and  the  first  six  of  them  were  part  of  the  old 
covenant.  Yet  by  divine  destiny  all  has  been  changed,  and 
no  one  any  more  observes  the  first  six,  nor  has  their  abrogation 
displeased  the  Lord  God.  The  seventh  and  last,  that  of  the 
Gospel,  can  only  hold  good  until  the  glorious  second  advent  on 
earth  of  Christ.  Yet  he  wiU  come,  not  as  the  profane  imagine, 
to  the  eye  or  senses,  but  spiritually  and  intellectually;  not  in 
brutal  fact  and  sight  to  all  or  any,  but  in  the  form  of  righteous 
mind,  and  true  preaching  and  in  no  other.  It  is  clear,  adds 
Kustodiev,  that  in  strict  accordance  with  his  fundamental  idea, 
Bondarev' s  rebukes  smite  the  external  side  of  religion,  not  only 
in  the  Church,  but  in  the  Raskol  Sects  themselves,  in  so  far 
as  they  tolerate  presbytery  and  preceptorate.  He  is  an  enemy 
of  every  kind  of  hierarchy,  and  his  opinions  connect  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Stranniki  with  that  of  two  unreservedly  rationalist 
groups  of  Old  beUevers,  the  Prayerless  and  the  Sighers  {or 
Aspirants),  who  very  hkely  owe  much  to  his  work. 


The  Prayerless  and  the  Sighers 

These  two  bodies  virtually  agree  in  their  tenets  and  are  the 
extreme  champions  of  the  religion  of  the  inner  man,  and  V.  S. 
Tolstoi  in  a  communication  to  the  Imperial  Society  of  History 


lOG  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  Antiquities  in  the  year  1864  (bk.  4,  p.  123)  gave  an  account 
of  the  Founder  of  the  Prayerless  Sect.  He  was  a  Don  Cossack, 
named  Gabriel  Zimin,  an  inhabitant  of  the  Thedosievskaya 
Stanitsa.  In  his  childhood  a  Popovets,  he  subsequently  joined 
the  opposite  Sect  the  Bezpopovtsy,  as  a  member  of  which  he 
gave  himself  up  to  the  reading  of  old  printed  books,  in  order 
to  ascertain  their  interpretation  of  various  points.  Presently 
he  elaborated  a  doctrine  of  his  own,  of  which,  though  based 
on  Scripture,  no  sect  had  ever  dreamt.  This  new  teaching 
exposed  him  to  the  reprisals  of  the  Government,  which  ban- 
ished him  in  1837  to  Transcaucasia,  where  what  became  of  him 
is  not  known.  The  thoroughness  with  which  he  carried  his 
creed  into  life,  is  shewn  by  an  incident  narrated  of  him.  The 
moment  proceedings  were  taken  against  him  for  joining  the  Sect, 
he  took  off  a  cross  of  St.  George  which  had  been  conferred  upon 
him  for  valor  and  restored  it  to  the  Government. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  this  sect  as  being  the  ne  plus  ultra 
of  'Old  belief  would  attract  to  itself  more  Old  beUevers  than 
Orthodox,  and  it  is  so.  The  former  are  perpetually  routing 
about  among  their  old  books.  This  sharpens  their  wits,  and 
not  seldom  they  find  among  the  rubbish  treasures  of  value, 
as  they  think,  even  for  the  modern  world. 

How  closely  Zimin's  sect  connects  with  the  Old  believers  is 
seen  in  their  general  attitude.  They  regard  all  the  corrections 
made  by  Nikon  as  so  many  'perversions  of  the  truth,'  and 
esteem  Nikon  himself  '  as  a  pioneer  in  that  path  of  corruption ' 
which  led  up  to  the  age  of  the  spirit,  and  along  which  the  mass 
of  Russians  are  moving  to-day. 

They  base  their  rehgious  philosophy  on  a  division  of  the 
past  into  four  ages;  of  these  four,  the  first  lasted  from  creation 
until  Moses;  this  was  Springtide,  the  age  of  the  fore-fathers  of 
our  race,  i.e.  the  Patriarchs:  the  second  extended  from  Moses 
to  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  is  called  Summer,  the  age  of  our 
Fathers.  The  third  from  Juhus  Caesar  to  1666  was  Autumn, 
the  age  of  sons;  from  1666  to  the  present  day  is  Winter,  the  age 
of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  Sighers  put  it  somewhat  differently,  holding  in  a  manner 
in  some  ways  reminiscent  of  Marcion,  in  others  of  Montanus, 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  167 

that  in  the  Old  Testament  we  have  the  kingdom  of  God  the 
Father,  in  whom  men  then  beUeved;  in  the  New  Testament 
that  of  God  the  Son,  which  began  with  the  birth  of  Christ  and 
continued  to  the  8,000th  year  from  Creation,  and  is  now  ended. 
With  the  8,000th  year  begins  the  reign  of  God  the  Spirit,  or  the 
Age  to  Come;  and  in  the  present  it  behooves  us  to  believe  in 
the  truth  of  the  Spirit,  by  means  of  sighing  or  aspiration  or 
out-breathing,  according  to  the  saying:  Glory  to  the  Father, 
and  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit. "^ 

The  Prayerless  teaching  then  in  general  inculcates  that  Truth 
is  utterly  extinct,  faith  suppressed  and  hidden;  but  as  the  age 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  nigh,  there  remains  but  a  single  chance  of 
salvation,  the  attainment  namely  of  such  ideals  and  ends  as  it 
is  ordained  for  us  to  fulfill  in  the  spirit,  but  not  at  all  through 
the  flesh  or  any  material  modes.  Not  even  oral  services  to  God 
are  permissible,  for  they  involve  use  of  the  tongue  of  the  body. 
Impressed  with  the  belief  that  they  are  living  in  the  age  of  the 
Spirit,  they  are  minded  to  take  everything,  holy  Scripture  not 
excepted,  in  a  spiritual  sense.  They  do  not  shrink  even  from 
evaporating  off  in  the  same  way  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
the  flesh,  his  passion,  death,  resurrection  and  ascension.  For 
example,  the  Virgin  Mary  was  good  counsel,  out  of  which  was 
born  the  Word  of  God,  and  he  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God. 
His  coming  in  the  flesh  they  do  not  preach;  but  by  way  of 
explaining  it  they  fall  back  on  the  idea  that  in  Jesus'  age,  divine 
rites  and  services  were  performed  in  the  flesh,  and  that  this 
flesh,  after  the  advent  of  the  age  of  the  Spirit,  is  completely 
set  aside  and  abrogated.  Ecclesiastical  authorities,  after  the 
7000  years  had  elapsed,  no  less  than  Church  Services  and  all 
external  rites,  came  abruptly  to  an  end;  and  since  then  all 
grades  of  clergy,  from  deacon  to  patriarch  are  on  a  level  with 
the  ordinary  layman;  nor  are  pastors  and  preceptors  or  rectors 
any  better,  for  they  usurp  their  authority  instead  of  receiving  it 
by  direct  succession.     A  church  or  orthodox  temple  is  nothing 

1  This  information  is  given  in  an  article  in  the  Supplement  to  the  Journal  of 
the  See  of  Kaluga,  for  the  year  1873,  No.  3,  entitled  "A  few  words  about  the 
Sighers  of  Kaluga,"  pp.  53-4.  Cp.  Albrecht  Dieterich,  Fine  Mithrasliturgie,  p.  14, 
1.  20  for  a  curious  parallel. 


168  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

more  than  a  simple  house,  and  sacraments  performed  therein 
were  only  pleasing  to  God  before  the  term  of  7000  years  expired. 
All  rubrics  are  antiquated;  external  modes  of  veneration  of 
God  no  longer  have  any  significance.  All  this  is  a  thing  of  the 
past.  The  age  to  come  is  upon  us,  and  no  Church  is  left  on 
earth.  It  is  not  wanted  any  more;  no  more  are  priestly  func- 
tions or  offerings  or  outward  ceremonies.  The  true  temple  is 
within  us  each,  in  the  heart;  for  it  was  said:  ''Ye  are  the 
churches  of  the  living  God,"  and  ''Are  ye  not  a  temple  of 
God."  ' 

If  the  old  Manichean  faith  had  not  lain  buried  for  a  thousand 
years  at  least  under  the  sands  of  Central  Asia,  awaiting  dis- 
interment by  scholars  and  explorers  like  Sir  Aurel  Stein, 
Grunwedel,  W.  D.  Miiller  and  others,  one  could  almost  sup- 
pose that  Zimin  had  drunk  of  its  inspiration.  He  shares  with 
Mani,  and  Mani's  spiritual  father  Marcion,  the  docetism  which 
gets  rid  of  the  flesh  and  historicity  of  the  Messiah;  he  also 
betrays  the  same  abhorrence  of  material  cults,  which  was 
carried  so  far  among  the  Cathars  and  Manieheans  that  they 
would  not  even  use  water  in  baptism  or  the  human  hand  in 
ordination.  In  their  abrogation  of  ecclesiastical  orders  the 
Prayerless  have  also  reached  the  same  goal  from  which  Marcion 
and  his  Cathar  and  Manichean  progeny  perhaps  started,  the 
conception  namely  of  a  single  spiritual  grade  of  election  by  the 
spirit,  first  exampled  in  Jesus  and  accessible  to  all  alike  who 
foUow  in  his  footsteps.  From  such  a  standpoint  the  difference 
between  a  pneumatic  or  inspired  laity  and  a  charismatic  priest- 
hood fades  into  nothingness;  we  are  back  in  a  stage  of  the 
development  of  Christian  speculation  and  practice  earlier 
than  any  separate  priesthood  at  all,  in  which  priesthood  had 
not  emerged;  such  a  stage  has  barely  left  any  trace  in  the 
Great  Chm-ches  of  East  and  West,  although  it  survived  into 
the  middle  ages  among  the  Cathars  and  even  into  the  XlXth 
Century  among  the  Thonraki  heretics  of  Armenia  described 
in  my  'Key  of  Truth.'  The  orthodox  clergy,  according  to 
Zimin's  followers,  are  ministers  of  Antichrist,  and  the  priestly 
fimctions  exercised  by  them  are  a  tissue  of  fraud  and  avarice. 

1  Kaluga  Journal  1873,  No.  2,  p.  32,  and  No.  3,  pp.  53-55. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  169 

God  asks  nothing  of  us  in  return  for  his  grace  and  loving  kind- 
ness; and  if  the  priests  were  truly  his  ministers  they  would 
take  nothing  for  their  rites.  Seeing  that  they  take  money  for 
every  prayer,  we  have,  they  say,  no  use  for  them.^ 

The  scriptures,  they  maintain,  must  without  exception  be 
understood  in  a  spiritual  sense,  especially  today.  Everything 
revealed  in  them  refers  to  this  age;  of  the  Heaven  to  be,  of  the 
bhss  of  the  just  ones,  of  the  departure  of  the  spirit  from  the 
flesh,  no  one,  in  their  opinion  can  know  aught,  for  it  is  all  an 
incomprehensible  mystery.  The  Father,  to  quote  their  lan- 
guage, denotes  the  Paternal  principle  or  rule  which  lasted  until 
Jesus  Christ;  the  Son,  the  filial  principle  that  held  sway  from 
the  birth  of  Christ  until  1666;  the  Holy  Spirit  the  principle 
that  dominates  this  age,  the  last.^ 

They  will  not  hear  of  prayers  offered  with  lips  of  flesh,  whence 
the  name  by  which  they  are  known  of  the  Prayerless.  In  their 
opinion  we  must  not  offer  up  to  God,  prayers  written  in  books, 
but  prayers  that  come  from  the  worshipper's  own  heart  and 
soul,  and  emanate  from  the  spirit  of  wisdom.  And  in  proof 
they  appeal  to  the  saying  of  the  Gospel:  ''Enter  thy  chamber, 
shut  thy  door  and  pray  in  secret."  "Enter  thy  chamber," 
they  argue,  is  a  precept  of  silence;  "shut  the  door"  means  to 
close  the  lips;  and  of  the  same  purport  is  the  maxim:  "True 
worshippers  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  It  is  an  evil  thing 
to  Uken  oneself  to  the  heathen,  to  utter  or  recite  any  sort  of 
prayers  at  home  or  in  meetings,  for  there  is  no  salvation  in  vain 
repetition.  Nay  more,  to  suppUcate  in  one's  mind  for  any- 
thing definite  is  superfluous  and  useless,  for  om*  Heavenly 
Father  knows,  without  om*  asking,  what  we  need.^ 

The  Cross  they  utterly  reject;  as  a  visible  or  material  object 
it  is  of  no  avail,  at  any  rate  in  the  present,  the  age  of  the  spirit. 
Baptisms  they  have  none,  and  only  give  a  child  a  name  in 
accordance  with  common  custom. 

The  marriage  union  is  accomplished  among  them  without 
any  reUgious  rite;   they  only  insist  on  a  mutual  agreement  of 

1  Kaluga  Journal  1873,  No.  3,  p.  56. 

2  Tolstoi,  op.  cit.  pp.  127-131. 

3  Istina,  1875,  41,  Missionary  Infornudion  about  Raskol. 


170  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

bride  and  bridegroom  and  parents;  but  one  party  must  not 
abandon  the  other  without  there  has  been  open  violation  of  the 
marriage  tie  to  excuse  it.  ''What  do  you  want  with  marriage?  " 
they  say.  "Choose  your  wife,  as  you  please,  and  live  with  her 
as  you  please,  and  you  commit  no  sin."  They  bury  the  dead 
without  any  hymns  or  prayers  and  in  the  simplest  manner  pos- 
sible, for  they  hold  that  a  dead  body  is  earth  and  returns  to 
dust.  They  therefore  reject  all  rites  performed  over  the  dead 
and  allow  no  conamemoration  of  them.  If  they  occasionally 
conduct  a  burial  in  accordance  with  the  regulations  of  the 
orthodox  church,  they  only  do  so  to  escape  the  vexations  of 
the  police. 

Holy  rehcs  discovered  before  the  7000th  year,  they  admit  to 
be  efficacious;  but  all  later  ones  they  repudiate  on  the  ground 
that,  since  the  age  of  the  Spirit  began,  there  is  no  use  for  them, 
while  even  genuine  ones  are  deprived  of  any  further  miraculous 
efficacity,  inasmuch  as  the  fleshly  or  carnal  age  has  expired. 
The  second  advent  of  Christ,  they  say,  is  already  past,  and 
they  alone  had  understanding  to  recognize  the  event  in  accord- 
ance with  divine  revelation.  The  day  of  judgment  they  do  not 
believe  in  and  appeal  to  the  saying:  "The  Father  hath  given 
judgment  to  his  Son,"  but  the  Son  is  the  Word,  and  the  Word 
has  already  deUvered  his  judgment  in  his  time,  that  is  before 
the  expiration  of  the  7000  years.  So  they  await  no  further 
advent  of  Christ  nor  attend  his  dread  judgment.  And  they 
say,  "after  death  there  is  nothing  of  the  sort;  we  shall  not 
answer  for  our  deeds  to  anyone." 

Feasts  and  fasts  they  equally  reject.  "You  think,"  they 
say  to  the  orthodox,  "that  you  are  gratifying  God  by  eating 
mushrooms  and  radishes.  You  are  not.  You  only  exhaust 
yourselves  and  enfeeble  your  strength." 

They  have  put  aside  everything  visible,  and  along  with  it 
priesthood,  nor  among  themselves  have  they  a  presbyterate 
resting  on  selection,  although  they  make  much  of  those  who 
have  a  turn  for  explaining  in  a  spiritual  manner  texts  of  scrip- 
ture, perverting,  says  Ivanovski,  their  meaning  to  their  own 
ends. 

Their  attitude  to  the  State  is  narrowly  connected  with  their 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  171 

theological  views.  They  shew  respect  for  the  Lord,  the  Tsar 
and  the  Government,  as  well  as  for  the  civil  laws,  because  they 
cannot  avoid  doing  so ;  but  in  reaUty  they  hold  that  all  estab- 
lished authority,  being  based  on  ignorance  of  the  age  and 
season,  must  inevitably  be  neither  valid  nor  just,  and  for  that 
reason  they  decline  to  obey  as  they  ought.  Imbued  with  such 
ideas,  opposed  to  sound  common  sense,  as  Ivanovski  thinks, 
they  reject  oaths  taken  no  matter  with  what  object,  and  are 
convinced  that  an  oath  in  particular  is  not  only  unavailing  but 
intrinsically  absurd,  all  the  more  so  because  an  ecclesiastic 
has  to  administer  it.  "  In  any  service  of  the  Government,  they 
say,  no  matter  what,  even  if  you  could  take  part,  don't,  except 
in  so  far  as  the  Government  drives  you  to  do  so  by  force,  so 
that  you  cannot  help  yourself.  Should  you  find  yourself  face, 
to  face  with  enemies  with  arms  in  their  hands,  that  is  no  excuse 
for  you  to  rush  to  arms.  Remember  the  words  of  the  Gospel, 
Mat.  26,  52:  "All  that  take  to  the  sword  shall  die  by  the 
sword."  They  reserve  the  appellation  of  Christian  warrior 
for  the  man  who  is  at  issue  with  infidels,  understanding  by  the 
latter  term  those  who  do  not  share  their  beliefs  in  the  succession 
of  the  ages  nor  realize  that  the  age  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  already 
come.  Such  is  the  picture  of  the  tenets  of  this  remarkable  sect, 
so  closely  allied  to  our  own  Quakers,  given  in  the  two  sources 
named,  viz:  Tolstoi's  articles  and  the  Kaluga  diocesan  journal. 

Uzov  admits  his  ignorance  with  regard  to  the  strength  and 
diffusion  of  the  Prayerless  Sect,  but  has  evidence  of  their  being 
found  all  over  Russia,  e.g.  in  the  territory  of  the  Don  Cossacks 
(Voiska  Donskago) ;  in  Odessa  as  early  as  1845,  as  testified  by 
Andreev;  in  the  Vyatka  Government  in  1867,  in  the  province 
of  Sarapul.  Here  entire  villages  belonged  to  it,  and  the  Gov- 
ernment in  the  hope  of  extirpating  it  proceeded  about  that  time 
to  imprison  its  leading  members.  Thereupon  the  members  of 
it  presented  themselves  en  masse  before  the  local  authorities 
and  besought  them  to  imprison  them  as  well;  but  the  jails  were 
not  large  enough,  and  many  of  them  were  turned  away  dis- 
appointed.^ 

Gatsisski  asserts  in  Old  and  New  Russia,  1877,  No.  11,  p.  274, 

^  V.  Popov:  Secrets  of  the  Raskolniks,  Old  Ritualists,  etc.  pp.  15,  16. 


172  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

that  seven  years  before  that  date  they  were  diffused  in  the 
trans-Volga  districts  of  the  Nizhegorod  Government,  in  other 
parts  of  which  they  ah-eady  existed;  in  many  villages  the  soil 
was  turned  up  ready  for  the  seed  of  the  new  faith  to  spring  up 
on  it.  In  the  Kaluga  Government,  we  learn  from  the  Kaluga 
diocesan  Journal  of  1873,  Nos.  2  and  3,  p.  39,  that  the  "lying 
propaganda"  of  the  'Sighers'  had  already  reached  a  great 
extension.  In  cabarets,  taverns,  in  the  streets  on  feast  days, 
you  heard  them  preaching.  Near  the  Tula  Gate  in  Kaluga 
in  a  certain  class  of  'estabUshment,'  their  disputes  with  other 
sectaries  often  threatened  to  degenerate  into  fisticuffs.  Accord- 
ing to  reports  they  had  appeared  in  the  Borov  and  Maloyaro- 
slav  provinces.  In  the  Kostroma  Government  they  were, 
according  to  Gatsisski,  scattered  about  in  the  district  of 
Vamavin;  and  their  presence  in  that  of  Korchev  was  also 
recorded.  Such  was  the  diffusion  of  this  sect  in  1880,  when 
Uzov  wrote;  since  then  it  is  likely  to  have  multipUed  itself 
on  the  same  scale  as  other  forms  of  dissent. 

The  Intellectual  Development  of  the  Bezpopovtsy 

In  general  and  especially  during  the  XlXth  Century  the 
Bezpopovtsy  have  shewn  a  more  hberal  tendency  than  the 
Popovtsy.  All  their  sects  have  evinced  the  same  determination 
to  supersede,  or  at  least  not  to  accept  without  careful  examina- 
tion, the  authority  even  of  their  own  writers  of  an  earUer 
generation.  Thus  the  Theodosian  sect  at  Riga  in  1826  drew 
up  a  code  for  the  regulation  of  their  refuge  or  house  of  mercy 
in  that  city  in  which  it  is  pointed  out  that  ''their  ancestors^ 
prescriptions  were  often  wrong."  It  was  therefore  felt  to  be 
necessary  "to  examine  attentively  the  publications  and  decrees 
of  former  generations,  to  uphold  such  parts  of  them  as  are 
consonant  with  law  and  scripture,  to  supplement  what  is 
defective,  to  make  clear  what  is  obscure,  and  exhibit  before  the 
community  whatever  conflicts  with  principles  and  holy  writ, 
so  that  it  may  be  altered."  ^  Long  ago  the  members  of  this 
same  sect,  in  their  discussion  of  burning  questions  with  the 

^  Nilski:  Family  Life  in  the  Russian  Raskol,  pt.  2,  p.  139. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  173 

Pomorians,  refused  to  be  bound  even  by  texts  from  the  Epistles 
of  the  Apostles  unless  these  could  be  shewn  to  be  appUcable  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  age ;  ^  and  a  well-read  monk  Paul 
of  the  priestless  sect  in  his  work:  The  Royal  Road,  which  en- 
joyed extraordinary  vogue  among  his  people,  repudiated  the 
assumption  that  authority  attaches  to  all  the  works  of  the 
Fathers.^ 

And  the  same  independence  of  mind  is  revealed  by  the  leaders 
of  the  priestless  sects  in  their  discussions  with  the  orthodox 
clergy  sent  to  convert  them.  Confronted  with  citations  from 
ancient  books  they  answer :  ''Well  and  good;  but  these  books, 
my  father,  were  written  in  an  age  when  the  ancient  piety 
existed,  and  were  true  to  fact  when  they  were  penned.  But 
that  old  piety  is  past  and  done  with  and  now  there  is  nothing 
to  which  you  can  apply  what  the  book  contains."  ^  "These 
were  books  of  great  men,"  others  will  answer,  "but  they  have 
passed  through  the  hands  of  heretics  who  have  doctored  them."^ 

It  was  in  vain,  remarks  Uzov,  that  orthodox  doctors  adduced 
passages  from  the  New  Testament  to  the  Fathers  to  prove 
that  the  Church  of  Christ  must  endure  to  the  end  of  the  world, 
that  the  gates  of  Hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it,  that  the 
hierarchical  order  is  similarly  perpetual,  because,  as  Cyril  of 
Jerusalem  wrote:  "Christ's  priesthood  after  the  order  of 
Melchizedek  shall  never  cease,"  and  so  forth.  The  Bez- 
popovtsy  rephed  that  such  promises  could  be  annulled  by  the 
sins  of  mankind  and  that  the  Scripture  offered  many  examples 
of  promises /or  ever  which  were  never  reahzed.  "God,"  they 
argued,  "promised  David  that  his  throne  should  stand  for 
ever,  and  yet  long  ago  the  Hebrew  priesthood  and  kingdom 
ceased  to  exist."  ^  Dire  necessity  turned  these  Raskolniks 
into  higher  critics  and  their  agiUty  in  controversy  led  an 
orthodox  pubUcist,  K.  Nadezhdin,  to  write  of  them  as  follows: 
"It  is  true  they  often  borrow  proofs  of  their  lying  teaching 

*  K.  Nadezhdin:  Disputes  of  the  Bezpopovtsy  of  the  Preobrazhenski  Cemetery  and 
of  the  Pokrovski  Chapel  about  marriage. 

*  M.  Stebnitski:  Among  the  People  of  the  Old  Religion,  2nd.  Edition  p.  12. 
'  T.  Tverdynski:  Conversations  of  an  Orthodox  Priest,  p.  28. 

*  Istina  (Truth)  1877,  Bk.  51,  Preaching  of  the  Truth,  p.  181. 

*  Istina,  1877,  Bk.  53 :  Preaching  of  the  Truth  in  the  See  of  Pskov,  p.  67. 


174  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

from  holy  writ,  but  at  the  same  time  no  sooner  do  they  see 
that,  in  spite  of  their  garbling,  it  does  not  bear  out  their  asser- 
tions, than  they  are  ready  to  deny  the  sanctity  even  of  holy 
writ  itself,  frequently  adding  that  it  was  given  us  as  much  for 
our  ruin  as  not."  Scripture,  according  to  the  Bezpopovtsi, 
is  no  other  than  a  two-edged  sword;  out  of  it  springs  every 
sort  of  heresy.^ 

In  the  conferences  which  were  held  at  Kazan  in  1871  the 
Bezpopo\i:sy  commenting  on  the  proofs  from  Scripture  laid 
before  them  by  N.  Ivanovski,  professor  in  the  seminary  there, 
answered:  ''Scripture  is  a  trackless  abyss;  that  only  to  one 
that  has  understanding  is  the  advent  of  Antichrist  palpable, 
and  men  have  advanced  interpretations  out  of  their  own 
imaginations,  based  on  nothing  at  all."  Ivanovski  replied 
that  though  on  the  one  hand  the  Old  believers  pretend  to  be 
champions  of  the  letter,  yet  wherever  it  suits  their  doctrine 
they  have  no  scruple  in  violating  its  obvious  meaning,  and 
concocting  interpretations  of  various  kinds,  half  rationahst, 
half  mystical,  which  they  dignify  by  the  name  of  the  'inward 
meaning.'  To  the  plainest  and  simplest  passages  of  Scripture 
and  the  Fathers  they  attribute  one  allegorical  sense  or  another, 
all  equally  strange.  A  monk  named  Barnabas,  formerly  one 
of  the  Bezpopovtsy,  who  in  1880  had  joined  the  Orthodox 
Church,  wrote  of  them  that  "by  preference  they  interpret 
everything  spiritually."  ^  In  this  connection  the  question  of 
Antichrist  occupies  the  first  place.  In  their  reasonings  about 
his  person  and  time  of  appearance  we  always  hear  one  and  the 
same  thing  said:  "We  must  understand  the  Scriptures  alle- 
gorically,  and  conceive  in  a  spiritual  manner  of  spiritual 
matters";  "no,  no,  it  does  not  help  us  to  understand  things 
carnally;  we  must  understand  Scripture,  not  according  to  the 
ink,  but  allegorically."  But  their  commonest  watchword  is: 
"To  him  that  hath  shall  understanding  be  given."  ^  And 
they  appeal  to  a  passage  of  Ephrem  Syrus  to  this  effect,  to 
be  read  in  his  tract  on  the  Dread  Judgment  and  on  Antichrist:  — 

'  Istina,  Bk.  6:   Controversy  among  Bezpopovtsy. 

2  Chronicle  (Letopis)  of  Events  among  the  Raskol,  by  N.  Subbotin,  p.  32. 

'  Orthodox  Companion,  No.  12,  art.  by  N.  Ivanovski,   pp.  475-8. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  175> 

"To  anyone  gifted  with  divine  wisdom  and  understanding, 
the  advent  of  the  tormenter  will  be  intelHgible,  but  for  him 
that  is  immersed  in  the  things  of  this  world  and  loves  the 
earthly,  it  shall  not  be  so;  for  if  we  be  wedded  to  interests  of 
this  life,  we  may  hear  the  Word,  but  will  have  no  faith;  nay, 
they  who  preach  it  will  excite  our  hatred." 

The  Bezpopovtsy  in  view  of  the  endeavours  of  Orthodoxy  to 
convert  them,  if  only  to  the  Uniat  position  (which  they  term  a 
snare)  by  a  system  of  missionary  preaching,  and  finding  them- 
selves compelled  under  pain  of  a  fine  to  send  their  learned  men 
to  hold  discussions  with  the  missionaries,  say  to  the  latter: 
"Formerlj^  we  were  tortured,  and  without  any  success;  and 
now  you  think  you  are  going  to  convert  us  to  the  Church  with 
the  help  of  a  few  old  books."  ^  "You  can  find  no  arguments 
now  to  lay  before  us  by  way  of  exonerating  yourselves  but  what 
you  find  in  our  own  old  printed  books;  but  you  yourselves 
have  cursed  these  books  and  abused  them  and  confiscated  them 
and  relegated  them  to  your  lumber-rooms :  and  we  are  on  our 
guard.  Just  as  you  used  to  torture  us  for  an  old  book,  so  now 
you  will  make  us  pay  dear;  and  if  we  give  you  nothing,  you 
will  carry  off  our  book  straight  away;  nay,  will  lock  us  up  in 
the  casemate  as  well.  Of  course  you  eulogise  the  old  books 
now,  you  even  appeal  to  them  for  everything,  as  if,  my  brother, 
we  had  not  read  them  a  thousand  times  and  long  ago."  ^ 

Uzov  pertinently  observes  that,  so  long  as  the  old  books  were 
the  sole  property  of  the  Old  beUevers,  they  naturally  took  good 
care  in  citing  them  to  pass  by  passages  that  contradicted  their 
position;  but  as  soon  as  orthodox  missionaries  that  had 
belonged  to  their  sect  began  to  use  them,  as  weapons  of  attack, 
and  so  revealed  what  double-edged  tools  they  were,  then  the 
Old  behevers'  enthusiasm  for  them,  as  we  saw  above,  began  to 
evaporate,  and  they  proclaimed  that  "to  him  that  hath  under- 
standing, more  shall  be  given." 

We  have  already  glanced  at  the  doctrine  of  the  Antichrist 
so  widely  current  in  the  Raskol,  and  Uzov  gives  some  account 
of  a  book  entitled  About  the  Antichrist,  Testimony  from  Holy 

*  Istina,  1876,  bk.  45,  Records  of  Conversations,  p.  654. 

•  ConverscUions  of  the  psalm  reader  Paul,  p.  6. 


176  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Writ.  He  was  to  appear  according  to  it  at  the  very  end  of  the 
XVIIIth  or  rather  at  the  beginning  of  the  XlXth  Century, 
and  it  is  explained  that:  "he  is  not  a  man  but  the  spirit  of 
our  world,  an  heretical  condition  of  the  Church,  an  apostasy 
of  Christians  from  the  Truth  vouchsafed  by  Christ,  a  spirit  of 
sacrilegious  impiety  and  eternal  perdition.  By  the  woman  of 
whom  he  is  to  be  born  we  are  to  understand  a  society  of  unclean 
people;  by  his  birth,  their  apostasy  from  Gospel  truth;  lastly 
by  the  three  and  a  half  years  which  is  to  be  the  period  of  his 
reign  is  signified  an  indefinite  lapse  of  time";  ''the  idea  of  the 
Antichrist  as  of  something  imperceptible,  ideal,  spiritual,  arose 
among  them  long  ago,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Raskol 
movement,  but  by  reason  of  its  abstract  character  it  had  at 
first  Uttle  vogue  among  them  and  was  never  formulated  clearly 
and  definitely;  ^  nowadays  it  has  become  a  favourite  topic  of 
Bezpopovtsy  conversations."  "As  a  spirit  of  sacrilegious 
apostasy  a  spirit  of  eternal  perdition,  it  lives,  so  they  teach, 
and  operates  principally  in  the  governing  classes  who  hold  power 
in  their  hands."^  For  the  rest:  "There  exist  among  them  at 
present  two  opinions  about  the  person  of  the  Antichrist :  some 
of  them  understanding  by  the  name  an  antichristian  spirit  in 
society,  an  apostasy  of  men  from  Christ  and  from  the  teaching 
he  bestowed  on  us,  an  heretical  condition  of  the  Christian 
Church;  others  conceiving  of  Antichrist  as  the  last  of  a  series  of 
persons  pursuing  one  and  the  same  teaching  opposed  to  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel."  The  latter  "understand  by  the  woman 
from  whom  is  to  be  born  the  Man  of  Sin  to  mean  an  earthly 
kingdom  of  some  sort,  concentrated  as  it  were  in  a  single  body; 
the  birth  of  Antichrist  is  the  issuing  or  provenance  of  such 
persons  out  of  this  kingdom  or  their  manifestation  therein." 
They  point  to  the  passage  of  the  apocalypse  about  a  whore, 
whose  name  Babylon,  they  declare  (following  Andrew  of 
Caesarea),  is  derived  from  the  woman,  who  is  nothing  but  a 
kingdom  of  earth,  and  in  especial  the  Roman  Kingdom,  called 
in  Peter's  epistle  Babylon,  and  the  Russian  Kingdom  called  by 
the  patriarch^Jeremiah  the  third  Rome.     Antichrist  is  to  be 

1  I.jjNilski:  About  Antichrist,  p.  xxxiv. 

2  I.  Popov:  Sbornik  for  history  of  Old  believers,  1. 1,  p.  xi. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  177 

born,  that  is,  manifest  himself  in  this  kingdom  or  issue  there- 
from; consequently  he  must  appear  in  Russia,  which  is  the 
third  Rome."  He  "has  been  reigning  in  the  world  for  long 
ages,"  in  Russia  ever  since  1666.^  Allegorization  of  the  old 
legend  of  Antichrist,  as  Miliukov  points  out,  rendered  it  easier 
for  the  Raskolniki  to  compromise  with  a  world  which  after  all 
had  not  come  to  an  end,  as  at  first  they  had  expected  it  to  do. 
The  logic  of  events  had  falsified  their  early  anticipations  of  his 
advent,  and  allegory  furnished  them  with  a  means  of  readjust- 
ing them. 

"In  the  old  legends  of  the  Antichrist,  Enoch  and  EHas  the 
prophets  were  also  to  appear,  and  the  Bezpopovtsy  found  as 
little  difficulty  in  dissipating  their  personalities  by  means  of 
allegory.  Enoch  was  the  natural  law,  EUas  the  written  law, 
John  the  law  of  grace." -^  "Others  declared  that  Elias  and 
Enoch  are  symbols  of  zealous  men  in  general,  and  that  anyone 
who  argues  from  the  written  letter  is  no  better  than  a  Jew."  ^ 
Such  glosses  as  the  above  reveal  that  the  Dissenters  had 
grown  out  of  their  early  behef  in  Antichrist,  with  its  implica- 
tion of  the  imminence  of  the  end  of  the  world.  The  world  had 
stood  the  test,  and  they  had  after  all  to  live  in  it.  Hence  the 
new  orientation  of  old  beliefs. 

At  this  time  one  can  hardly  refrain  from  asking  oneself  if 
these  opinions  have  not  had  much  to  do  with  the  present 
upheaval  in  Russia.  In  their  crude  way  these  simple  people 
had  apprehended  the  truth.  That  the  present  catastrophe  is  a 
result  of  the  neglect  by  all  the  Governments  of  Europe  of  the 
elementary  moral  truths  enunciated  in  the  Gospel,  who  can 
doubt?  These  truths  avenge  themselves,  if  they  are  flouted 
and  ignored,  as  surely  as  would  the  axioms  of  mathematics, 
if  they  were  set  at  naught ;  moral  principles  are  no  less  infaUible 
and  certain,  remarked  Leibnitz  long  ago,  than  the  postulates 
and  axioms  of  geometry;  and  if  the  latter  got  in  the  way  of 
our  passions  and  cupidity  as  much  as  does  moraUty,  EucUd 
and  Archimedes  would  be  denounced  as  dreamers  and  hope- 
lessly impracticable  people. 

^  I.  Nilski:  About  Antichrist  against  the  Raskolniks,  pp.  1,  100-1,  107,  108. 
2  Edifying  Reading  {Dushepoleznoe  Chtenie)  1869,  On  the  Advent  of  Elias  and 
Enoch,  by  the  Priest  Paul,  pt.  2,  137, 138, 140, 147  and  pt.  3, 10, 12. 


178  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

The  identification  of  Tsardom  and  of  the  late  Russian  polity 
with  the  reign  of  Antichrist  was  naturally  little  conducive  to 
the  loyalty  which  finds  expression  in  prayers  for  the  Sovereign. 
A  minority  of  the  dissenters,  especially  in  the  cities,  tried  by 
unsparing  use  of  the  allegorical  method  to  reconcile  such 
loyalty  with  their  conscience,  especially  in  times  when  the 
Tsar's  Government  betrayed  the  least  tendency  to  tolerate 
their  existence;  but  these  fits  of  toleration  were  always  of 
brief  duration  and  due  to  the  personal  enlightenment  of  a  Tsar 
or  Tsaritsa.  Behind  the  sovereign  there  ever  stood  the  Holy 
Synod  with  its  'short  method  for  dealing  with  dissenters.' 

It  was  mainly  the  Thedosievtsy  and  Pomortsy  who  lived  in 
cities  that  shewed  a  tendency  to  compromise  and  admit  a 
detente  in  the  sway  over  Russia  of  the  Antichrist,  but  the  more 
extreme  sect,  the  wanderers  or  Beguny,  remained  intransigent, 
and  indeed  the  vast  majority  of  the  Raskolniks  held  by  their 
convictions,  as  is  shewn  by  the  fact  that  in  the  XlXth  Century 
the  sects  which  spread  and  multiplied  were  mostly  those  which 
regarded  prayers  for  the  Tsar  and  the  royal  family  as  the  worst 
form  of  blasphemy,  an  actual  verification  of  the  legend  which 
represented  the  Antichrist  as  forcing  his  way  into  the  temple 
and  deifying  himself.  Nor  was  this  tendency  confined  to  the 
priestless  dissenters.  The  less  extreme  Popovtsy  shared  it,^ 
and  in  1868,  in  a  council  held  in  their  Austrian  centre  of  Bielo- 
Krinits,  they  solemnly  decreed  that  any  who  pray  for  the 
Powers  that  be  shall  be  excommunicate.  'How  will  you  ever 
find  grace  at  the  hands  of  the  Beast? '  asked  such  partisans.^ 

In  every  country  trade  and  wealth  engenders  the  instinct 
to  uphold  Church  and  State.  One  is  therefore  prepared  to 
learn  that  it  was  chiefly  among  dissenting  shop-keepers  in 
Russia  that  an  inclination  to  pray  for  the  Tsar  shewed  itself. 
The  Russian  peasant,  on  the  other  hand,  remained  obdurate. 
Thus  on  January  23rd,  1864,  when  division  of  opinion  about 
the  matter  revealed  itself  in  a  general  meeting  of  the  Popovtsy, 
held  in  their  Moscow  headquarters,  the  so-called  Rogozhski 
cemetery,  only  ten  persons  were  in  favour  of  offering  up  in  the 

1  Russki  Vestnik,  1869,  No.  2,  art.  by  Subbotin. 

2  Edifying  Readings,  1869,  Pt.  3,  art.  by  Paul  the  Priest,  pp.  365-6. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  179 

liturgy  a  prayer  for  the  Tsar,  the  peasants  and  poorer  citizens 
going  against  it  en  masse,  according  to  Subbotin's  articles  in 
the  "Russki  Vestnik"  for  that  year  (No.  2,  p.  775;  No.  3, 
pp.  407,  413)  and  for  1869  (No.  10,  p.  605).  The  vast  majority 
of  the  Popovtsy  were  during  the  sixties  of  the  last  century  at 
one  in  such  matters  with  the  Priestless  Sect,  into  whose  ranks 
of  every  shade  of  opinion  there  was  a  constant  tendency  for 
them  to  drift,  as  we  read  in  the  "Russki  Vestnik"  for  June 
1865  in  I.  Belliyustin's  art:  More  About  Movements  in  the 
Raskol,  also  in  I.  Liprandi's  contribution  to  the  Proceedings  of 
the  Imperial  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Russia,  for  1870,  Vol.  2. 
Another  author  notes  how  the  majority  of  dissidents  used  in 
their  hymns  such  words  as  '  Vouchsafe  to  true  believers  victory 
over  all  opposition.'  ^  But  the  so-called  Stranniki  or  Wanderers 
were  the  leading  propagandists  of  an  intransigent  attitude 
towards  the  Imperial  Government,  and  accused  those  of  their 
co-rehgionists  who  prayed  for  the  Tsar  of  gross  inconsistency 
with  their  principles,  inasmuch  as  victory  for  the  Government 
meant  victory  of  devil  and  Antichrist.^  And  another  writer, 
I.  Dobrotvorski,  has  justly  remarked:  ^  "Among  the  Priestless 
dissenters  the  behef  in  Antichrist  colours  their  view  of  all  that 
appertains  to  the  State,  of  its  laws,  of  its  judicial  procedure, 
of  everything  that  reminds  them  of  Authority,  in  a  word  of 
all  governmental  usages.  The  stamp  of  Antichrist  is  on  it  all; 
and  it  is  all  equally  hateful  to  the  Raskolniks,  all  equally 
impregnated  with  anti-Christian  spirit.  Some  of  them,  no 
doubt,  are  less  extreme  than  others  and  only  go  half-way,  but 
the  leaven  has  been  there  always  and  is  ever  at  work." 

The  elementary  intellectual  independence  of  the  Bezpopovtsy 
was  shewn  in  their  repudiation  'in  case  of  need'  of  everything 
in  Holy  Scripture  that  conflicted  with  their  religious  aspira- 
tions. Antichrist  has  annihilated  the  genuine  priesthood, 
therefore  they  have  none.  "This,"  they  cried,  "is  the  last 
age,  in  which  everyone  must  judge  for  himself  what  is  best."  ^ 

^  Istina  for  1875,  Vol.  38:  ^Internal  Disputes  among  the  Dissidents.' 

2  Vestnik  Europy,  1871,  No.  1,  art.  by  Rozov,  p.  287. 

3  Orthodox  Review,  1862,  Ft.  1,  p.  386. 

*  T.  Tverdynski,  Discussions  of  orthodox  principles  ivith  old  ritvxilists,  p.  437. 


180  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

The  Church,  they  hold,  is  an  union  of  the  faithful,  and  can 
dispense,  if  need  be,  with  a  hierarchy  for  the  best  of  reasons, 
to  wit,  because  it  has  Christ  himself  for  its  head.  A  priestless 
believer  wiU  point  his  finger  to  his  own  breast  and  say:  ''Here 
is  the  true  Church,  here,  in  my  heart !  Not  in  the  timbers  of  a 
church,  but  in  my  ribs."  The  Apostle  Paul  wrote:  ''Ye  are 
the  temple  of  the  Uving  God,"  according  to  the  divine  utter- 
ance: "I  will  dwell  in  them  etc."  ^  In  them  therefore  is  ful- 
filled the  teaching  that  every  man  is  a  temple  of  God  not  built 
with  hands,  that  in  each  of  us  God  lives  and  gives  ear  to  the 
heart's  prayers.^  You  can  hear  the  Bezpopovtsy  to-day  using 
such  words  as:  'I  am  the  Church.'  ^ 

Opinion  on  Priesthood  and  Sacraments 

There  are  even  Bezpopovtsy,  according  to  the  Hegumen  Paul, 
who  maintain  that  "the  priesthood  itself  and  the  Sacraments 
of  the  Eucharist  and  of  anointing  with  Chrism  are  innovations. 
They  declare  that  in  the  earUest  age  they  never  existed  and 
were  all  introduced  by  Nikon.  Before  his  date  there  was 
nothing  but  what  the  Bezpopovtsy  now  possess,  namely  an 
order  of  teachers,  whom  they  also  call  popes."  ^  This  opinion, 
remarks  Uzov,  which  seems  merely  absurd  to  the  hegumen  Paul, 
rests  nevertheless  on  firm  historical  facts.  Before  Nikon's 
age  the  relations  of  clergy  to  people  were  not  what  they  are 
to-day.  "The  parish  churches  in  Russia  had  long  been 
accustomed  to  see  in  their  priests  elected  representatives  of  the 
people's  will.  At  the  close  of  the  XlVth  Century  they  were 
judged  by  laymen  even  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  each  parish 
instituted  any  particular  priest  it  preferred,  and  his  election 
depended  on  his  receiving  from  the  Commune  a  diploma  of 
approval  to  which  the  parishioners  must  subscribe  their  names." 

Moreover,  it  is  notorious,  writes  Andreev  in  his  work  on  the 
Raskol  and  its  significance  in  popular  Russian  history  (pp.  93, 

*  T.  Tverdynski,  Discussions  of  orthodox  principles  with  Old  ritualists,  p.  115. 
2  Istina,  1874,  bk.  35:  Propaganda  of  Truth  in  See  of  Pskov,  p.  3. 

•■'  Hegumen  Paul :  Description  of  a  Tour  among  Litovski  (Lithuanian)  Old-believ- 
era  in  1869-70,  p.  20. 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  18. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  181 

94,  95,  135,  136),  that  "in  the  pre-Muscovite  period  Novgorod 
often  transacted  its  ecclesiastical  affairs  without  the  benedic- 
tions of  hierarchical  authorities.  Their  spiritual  lords  Arsen- 
ius  and  Theodosius  were  never  consecrated  by  any  higher 
church  authority;  popular  choice,  it  is  clear,  was  of  more 
importance  in  their  eyes  than  consecration  by  a  metropoUtan 
or  patriarch.  Even  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  XVIIth 
Century  in  central  Russia  the  priesthood  was  an  elective  dig- 
nity; in  Pskov  and  its  neighbourhood  in  1685  as  many  as  160 
churches  were  in  the  hands  of  peasants,  who,  without  recog- 
nizing archpriest  or  bishop,  paid  the  priests  whatever  presti- 
mony  or  annual  stipend  they  liked.  Of  old  the  parishioners 
regarded  the  church  as  an  appanage  of  their  own." 

In  that  age  and  even  later  on  the  inhabitants  of  Pomor  often 
dispensed  altogether  with  a  priest.  Accordingly  Barsov  relates 
"that  the  people  of  that  region  finding  it  not  infrequently 
impossible  to  visit  their  parish  churches  by  reason  of  want  of 
good  roads  and  the  great  distances,  confined  themselves  to 
building  oratories  in  which  all  the  services,  except  the  liturgy, 
were  performed  by  any  common  person.  This  explains  why  the 
laity  of  Northern  Pomor  so  easily  asserted  themselves  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  regarding  them  as  no  less  the  concern  of 
villagers  and  local  authorities  than  of  the  clergy.  Individual 
village  communities,  for  example,  in  the  revolutionary  epoch, 
with  the  consent  of  their  zemstvos  or  county  councils,  under- 
took certain  arrangements  on  their  own  initiative,  drew  up 
rehgious  rules  and  regulations.  When,  later  on,  the  insti- 
tution of  the  popes  by  the  people  on  the  spot,  by  peasants  and 
even  by  serfs,  was  declared  irregular  by  the  canons  of  the 
church  authorities,  and  strict  ukases  were  issued  dealing  with 
candidates  for  ordination  and  registers  to  the  newly  appointed 
popes  and  deacons, —  then  the  clergy  began  at  once  to  lose  their 
moral  influence  and  power  over  the  zemstvos  in  the  Pomor 
region;  conversely  the  latter  began  to  sit  loose  to  clergy  and 
church,  began  to  trust  more  in  the  intellectual  and  religious 
influence  of  the  learned  than  in  that  of  the  popes.  In  this 
condition  of  things  we  have,  in  fine,  one  of  the  main  reasons, 
if  not  the  main  reason  why  in  the  Pomor  region  the  priestless 


182  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Raskol  spread  with  such  rapidity."  ^    Ivanovski,  we  saw,  takes 
a  similar  view. 

When  the  Raskol  began  in  the  XVIIth  Century  its  teachers 
had  none  of  them  any  idea  of  abandoning  priesthood  and  sacra- 
ments. It  was  only  gradually  that  circumstances  reconciled 
them,  at  first  to  dispensing  with  them  at  need,  and  later  on 
to  abandoning  them  altogether,  and  adopting  the  idea  that 
every  man  is  a  priest.  This  truth  was  fully  enunciated  early 
in  the  XlXth  Century  by  Nicephor  Petrov:  ''all  are  on  a 
level;  for  pastors  we  have  no  use;  all  have  received  one  and 
the  same  cheirotonia  (laying  on  of  hands);  Confession  also 
should  consist  in  the  taking  of  counsel  with  the  inner  self  and 
not  in  the  power  to  remit  sins."  ^  In  1841  Sidor  Kutkin 
"preached  in  the  Kurlyandski  (Courland)  Government,  that 
any  and  every  Raskolnik  may  himself  fulfil  the  needs  of  the 
Church  without  having  to  resort  to  elder  or  teacher."  ^  Such 
teaching  was  widespread  within  thirty  years,  and  in  1875  the 
teachers  of  the  sect,  if  asked  on  what  ground  they  regarded 
themselves  as  pastors,  would  reply  with  a  text  from  the  Apoc- 
alypse: "He  created  us  to  be  kings  and  priests."  ^  At  other 
times  they  would  answer:  "The  Mir  (village  commune)  has 
chosen  us  as  pastors."  When  Paul  the  hegumen  objected  that 
this  was  not  enough,  and  that  Divine  Ordination  by  means  of 
prayers  appointed  to  that  end  was  necessary,  he  was  met  with 
the  answer:  "The  voice  of  the  People  is  the  voice  of  God."  ^ 

In  the  discussions  held  in  the  Government  of  Pskov  the  Bez- 
popovtsy  also  declared  as  follows:  "Among  us  today  exists  the 
priesthood  of  Melchizedek;  every  man  is  his  own  priest."  ^ 

The  author  of  a  work  entitled  Ritualists  of  the  Church  Hier- 
archy (the  Orthodox  are  meant)  writes:  "The  spiritual  sacra- 
mental Priesthood  of  Christ  belongs  to  every  Christian,  who 
has  hallowed  himself  with  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  ^    In 

^  Nikolai  Barsov,  The  brothers  Andrew  and  Semen  Denisov,  p.  41-2. 

2  Vestnik  Evropy,  1871,  No.  4,  art.  by  Kostomarov,  p.  531. 

3  Orth.  Review,  1865,  No.  3,  Art.  by  A.  Veskinski. 

*  This  text  is  ever  on  the  tip  of  a  Raskolnik's  tongue. 

"  Bratskoe  Slovo  (Brotherly  Word),  1875,  bk.  2.  Journal  of  Hegumen  Paul,  p.  123. 

'  Istina,  1873,  Bk.  35,  Preaching  of  the  Truth  in  Pskov,  p.  7. 

'  Edifying  Readings,  1870,  pt.  1,  Art.  by  the  Priest  Paul. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  183 

another  work  entitled:  Doctrine  of  the  Christian  Church  about 
the  Keys,  it  is  shewn  that  the  Keys  of  Priesthood  belong  not 
only  to  ordained  persons,  but  to  the  whole  Church,  which  can 
therefore  very  well  exist  without  any  priesthood  at  all.  This 
is  quoted  in  a  ''description  of  sundry  works  written  by  the 
Russian  Raskolniks  for  use  of  the  Raskol,"  among  the  memoirs 
(zapiski)  of  Alexander  B.  pt.  2,  p.  332. 

Renunciation  of  priesthood  carried  with  it  that  of  most 
of  the  sacraments;  and  the  Bezpopovtsy,  as  we  saw,  were 
left  with  baptism  and  penance  only,  because  these  could 
be  administered  by  laymen.  "Jesus  Christ,"  they  argued, 
"commanded  many  of  his  apostles  to  baptize  without  their 
possessing  priesthood,  and  apostolic  perfection  is  attained, 
not  by  a  graduated  hierarchical  promotion,  but  by  moral 
improvement,  purity  of  heart  and  freedom  from  passion."  ^ 

We  see  how  the  lack  of  a  priesthood  gradually  awakened  the 
mind  of  the  majority  of  the  Raskol  to  the  truth  that  every  man 
is  a  priest,  and  this  step  in  religious  reasoning  has  inevitably 
led  to  a  new  idea  of  the  sacrament  of  communion.  Accord- 
ingly it  is  commonly  urged  among  them  to-day  that  "a  man 
who  lives  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  communicates  every  day 
of  his  life."  ^  "  If  I  live  a  good  life,  then  I  am  saved  even  with- 
out communicating  in  the  holy  mysteries.^  Live  you  a  Ufe  of 
good  works,  they  say  to  the  orthodox,  and  God  will  not  for- 
sake you;  only  set  your  hope  on  communion  with  him.'*  Com- 
munion is  reached  in  a  life  that  imitates  Christ's,  according  to 
his  saying:  If  a  man  loveth  me  and  keepeth  my  word,  my 
Father  will  love  him  and  come  unto  him  and  make  his  dwelhng 
in  him."  ^  It  is  the  merit  of  the  Bezpopovtsy  to  have  seen 
this  truth,  when  they  appeal  to  Augustine's  saying  that  he 
who  eats  his  meal  with  faith  already  communicates  in  the 
divine  mystery.  Let  a  man,  they  say,  but  sit  down  to  meat 
after  a  prayer,  and  cross  himself  before  he  begins  to  eat,  and 

1  Ibid.  pp.  115,  117. 

2  Ibid.  1871,  No.  7,  art.  of  Hegumen  Paul  143-5. 

3  Ibid. 

*  Istina,lS70,  bk.  15:  Conversations  with  Bezpopovtsy  of  the  monk  Prokopius, 
p.  58. 

^  Edifying  Readings,  1870,  pt.  1:  Art.  of  the  Priest  Paul,  p.  170. 


184  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

then  his  common  bread  shall  be  for  him  the  equivalent  of  holy 
communion.^ 

In  exempUfication  of  this  con\dction  Uzov  reproduces  a 
fragment  of  a  conversation  between  an  orthodox  priest  and 
a  Bezpopovets  elder  as  follows :  — 

Elder:    Here  you  see  my  church  {leading  the  way  to  his  cottage). 
Priest:  And  how  do  you  communicate  in  this  pretended  church 

of  yours? 
Elder:    {pointing   to   his   homely   table):    There   we   have   our 

altar,  at  which  we  communicate  day  by  day. 
Priest:  And  how  can  you  communicate  at  this  table? 
Elder:    How?     In    what?     Surely    in  the    bread    of    Christ. 
Behold  the  bread  that  Christ  has  given  us.^ 

The  scene  reminds  us  of  much  in  early  Christian  literatiu-e  of 
the /cXao-t?  a/arou' Breaking  of  Bread,'  of  the  Acts  and  Epistles; 
of  that  ancient  Teaching  of  the  Apostles  in  which  the  Lord's 
Prayer  was  used  as  the  prayer  for  the  consecration  of  the 
Eucharistic  meal;  reminds  us  also  of  the  fact,  attested  by 
Socrates  the  historian,  that  still  in  the  IVth  Century  in  parts 
of  Egypt  the  eucharistic  rite  was  celebrated  by  a  layman,  the 
head  of  a  household,  sitting  with  his  family  round  his  own 
table;  of  the  fact,  attested  in  the  'invectives'  of  a  Byzantine 
Churchman  against  the  Armenians,  that  the  same  pristine  sim- 
plicity still  prevailed  in  primitive  Christian  circles  among  them. 
Late  into  the  Middle  Ages,  as  the  Inquisitors'  records  prove, 
the  Cathars  consecrated  their  Eucharist  by  repeating,  before 
they  partook  of  the  sacred  food,  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  no  more. 
Under  stress  of  Orthodox  persecution  the  Bezpopovtsy  have 
wandered  back  unwittingly  into  a  paleontological  phase  of  the 
Christian  Church. 

The  Bezpopovtsy  take  up  an  equally  free  and  unconven- 
tional attitude  towards  other  Sacraments,  and  betray  no  little 
agiUty  in  finding  scriptural  texts  to  bear  them  out,  and  where 
they  cannot  find  any,  leap  Ughtly  over  the  letter,  to  shield  them- 
selves behind  the  necessities  of  an  age  in  which  .\ntichrist 
dominates  the  world. 

'  From  the  Priest  Paul,  Edifying  Readings,  1870,  pt.  1,  p.  170. 
^  Istina,  1868,  bk.  6,  Vsyachina  (Miscellany). 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  185 

Uzov  admirably  summarizes  the  religious  development  of 
the  Raskol  during  the  XlXth  Century  in  these  words :  "March- 
ing under  the  banner  of  Holy  Scripture,  at  the  same  time  admit- 
ting a  'higher'  or  spiritual  interpretation,  they  are  little  by 
little  reforming  and  recasting  their  outlook  on  the  world,  are 
drawing  ever  nearer  and  nearer  to  religious  rationahsm.  They 
are  as  a  rule  condemned  for  their  slavish  adherence  to  the  letter, 
to  ritual,  to  forms,  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  populace 
that  remains  orthodox.  This  is  a  huge  mistake,  based  on  the 
tactics  formerly  —  and  still  occasionally  —  followed  by  them 
in  their  assaults  on  orthodoxy.  They  began  by  finding  fault 
with  the  orthodox  because  the  latter  used  three  fingers  in 
crossing  themselves  instead  of  two,  because  they  used  the 
spelling  lesus  instead  of  Isus,  used  a  four-cornered  cross  instead 
of  an  eight-cornered  one,  repeated  the  Alleluiah  thrice  instead 
of  twice;  reduced  the  seven  prosphorae  or  wafers  of  the  Uturgy 
to  five,  and  so  forth.  We  must  not  overlook  this,  that  such 
argumentation  was  fashioned  in  an  age  when  the  supreme 
shepherds  of  the  Orthodox  Chiu-ch  had  anathematized  the 
Raskolniks  for  adhering  to  these  trifling  points  of  ritual,  stig- 
matized the  two-fingered  signature  as  an  Armenian  jest,  denied 
that  Isus  could  be  a  title  of  God,  because  in  Greek  it  means 
equal  {ia-o<;),  and  so  on.  The  Raskolniks  successfully  as- 
sailed the  Orthodox  on  such  points,  and  they  attained  their 
object,  which  was  separation  from  the  Orthodox  Church  and 
independence  of  the  orthodox  clergy.  The  latter  left  nothing 
undone  to  keep  up  a  purely  rituaUst  antagonism;  for  example 
in  an  Ukase  of  the  Holy  Synod  of  May  15,  1722,  we  read  among 
other  things  the  following:  '  If  there  beany  who  while  obeying 
Holy  Church  and  accepting  all  her  sacraments,  nevertheless  in 
signing  themselves  with  the  Cross  employ  two  fingers  instead 
of  three,  no  matter  whether  they  do  this  with  the  subtilty  of 
opponents  or  out  of  ignorance  or  out  of  obstinacy,  all  such  shall 
be  inscribed  in  the  Raskol  and  regarded  as  nothing  else.'  "  ^ 

In  the  past  the  orthodox  clergy,  no  less  than  the  Raskolniks, 
were  characterized  by  an  excessive  adherence  to  the  letter, 
by  extreme  formalism;   but  in  any  case  this  characteristic  was 

'  Collection  oj  ordinances  a^  touching  Raskol,  bk.  1,  p.  33. 


186  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

less  developed  in  the  Raskolnik  than  in  the  orthodox  clergy,  as 
is  shewn  by  later  history.  To-day  it  is  the  turn  of  the  ortho- 
dox to  find  fault  with  the  Raskolniks,  not  for  their  insistence  on 
the  letter,  but  for  the  wrongheaded  Uberties  they  assume  in 
interpreting  Scripture.  The  vast  majority  of  them,  consisting 
of  Bezpopovtsy,  are  beginning,  as  we  have  seen,  to  champion 
the  rights  of  private  judgment  and  freedom  of  interpreta- 
tion. Among  them  a  book  circulates,  in  which  the  Orthodox 
^re  termed  'the  rituaUsts  of  the  Church  hierarchy,'  a  sign  that 
they  regard  hierarchy  as  a  vice  in  the  Orthodox.  "Almost 
^11  the  Bezpopovtsy  sects  allow,  like  the  Protestants,  complete 
Uberty  of  research,  and  base  their  teaching  not  upon  tradition, 
but  upon  logic  and  reasoning."  ^  "So  called  orthodox  faith," 
has  remarked  one  of  the  Bezpopovtsy,  "is  an  appurtenance  of 
the  Crown  and  Treasury,  an  official  badge.  It  rests  on  no 
basis  of  real  life  or  sincere  conviction,  but  just  does  duty  as  a 
Government  weapon  for  the  defence  of  order."  ^ 

The  Hegumen  Paul  also  reports  a  conversation  he  held  with 
Markian  Gerasimov,  a  hermit  who  wielded  a  great  influence  in 
liis  circle  of  Dissenters  and  who  told  him  in  a  discussion  that, 
in  his  opinion,  we  have  no  need  to  believe  in  an  ink-written 
volume  of  the  Gospel,  such  as  belonged  to  Father  Paul,  even  if 
it  did  belong  to  the  time  (c.  1609)  of  the  Patriarch  Hermogenes. 
It  was  better  to  believe  in  the  volume  of  the  Gospel  which  is 
stored  up  in  the  heart,  and  he  called  Father  Paul  a  necroman- 
<cer,^  by  reason  of  his  adherence  to  the  dead  letter. 

The  germs  of  such  opinions  had  made  their  appearance  long 
before.  Thus  early  in  the  18th  century  Hierotheus,  a  member 
of  the  Anufrievski  (Onufrius)  sect  of  Old  believers,  put  together 
on  the  basis  of  Avvakima's  writings  twenty-five  points  of  which 
the  tenth  runs  thus: —  "To  venerate  the  Gospel  story,  because 
it  is  written  down  in  ink,  smacks  of  the  manners  of  the  Tartar." 
And  when  the  rest  of  the  Old  believers  of  Kerzhen  (his  own  sect 
excepted)  asked  for  proofs  from  holy  writ,  he,  along  with  those 
who  shared  his  views,  instead  of  furnishing  them,  answered: 

1  Kelsiev,  Sbornik,  vol.  1,  p.  viii. 

2  Russian  Archive,  1866,  No.  4,  art.  by  I.  Aksakov,  p.  633. 

3  Bratskoe  Slovo,  1876,  bk.  2,  M.  Makarov,  p.  156. 


THE  BEZPOPOVTSY  187 

''You  are  gross  minds  and  do  not  understand  how  to  handle 
the  Scriptures."  This  is  related  by  Esipov  in  his  work  on  the 
Raskolniks  of  the  18th  century,  vol.  2,  p.  236. 

A  talented  teacher  of  the  Stranniki  (Pilgrim  or  Wan- 
derer) Sect,  Nicetas  Semenov  Kiselev,  remarked  to  a  certain 
Kosharin,  ''that  the  reasons  given  for  separating  from  the 
Church  indicated  in  the  Pomorski  Responses  were,  in  his  j  udg- 
ment  at  least,  insufficient;  for  there  existed  others  incompar- 
ably weightier,  but  unknown  to  the  ancestors  of  the  Old 
believers."  ^  He  taught  that  "the  cross  of  endurance,  borne 
by  the  pilgrims,  which  cross  is  the  strannitchestvo  or  wandering 
hfe  itself,  is  weightier  than  the  Cross  of  Christ,  and  that  by  it 
alone  the  sins  of  humanity  are  redeemed  and  atoned  for." 

K.  Nadezhdin  in  1866  deplored  the  infidehty  and  atheism  of 
the  Bezpopovtsy  in  general,  and  stated  that  "it  had  gone  so  far 
of  late  years  as  to  reject  the  pure  and  life-giving  cross  on  which 
Christ  suffered  for  our  redemption.  They  refused  to  bow  down 
before  it  and  abused  it,  calling  it  a  log  of  wood  like  any  other 
log."^  Another  observer  summarizes  their  teaching  thus: — "It 
is  indubitable  that  Antichrist  came  long  ago,  so  that  by  now 
all  divine  promises  about  the  Church  are  made  vain  and  at  an 
end.  We  are  living  in  the  age  to  come,  thai  is, in  the  new  heavens 
and  new  earth.  The  resurrection  of  the  dead  is  past,  or  rather  it 
is  incessantly  being  accompUshed  in  each  of  us  according  to  the 
degree  of  his  merit  and  piety."  ^  Such  an  outlook  is  no  unique 
case.  Thus  in  a  "  conversation  which  was  held  in  the  stanitsa 
or  Cossack  Colony  of  Ust-Medveditskaya,  the  Bezpopovtsy 
defended  their  way  of  living  without  any  divinely  established 
sacraments  by  the  following  argument  among  others.  They 
said  that  in  accordance  with  St.  Peter's  prediction  (II  Peter 
III.  7.)  the  heaven,  by  which  they  understand  the  Church,  is 
already  consumed  by  fire,  and  the  elements,  meaning  the  sacra- 
ments, are  abolished,  so  that  they  are  now  living  in  the  new 
heavens."  ^ 

These  opinions,  says  Uzov,  that  we  are  Uving  "in  a  new 

'  Contemporary  Chronicles  (Sovrem.  Letopis),  1868,  No.  16. 

2  Orthodox  Review,  1866,  No.  7,  p.  317. 

3  Orthodox  Convers.  1869,  No.  10,  art.  by  N.  I.,  p.  130. 

^  Bratskoe  Slovo,  1876,  bk.  2,  Chronicle  of  Raskol  Events,  p.  226. 


188  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

heaven,"  and  that  all  "the  promises  of  God"  are  ab-eady  ful- 
filled and  so  forth,  reveal  the  range  of  the  individual  believer's 
speculation  and  feelings.  All  that  was  written  by  EvangeUsts 
and  other  holy  men  refers  to  the  past;  in  the  present  the 
individual  believer's  conscience  constitutes  the  sole  norm  of 
what  is  right.  Orthodox  missionaries  of  to-day  find  themselves 
confronted  with  a  mental  attitude  which  they  can  only  describe 
by  saying  that  the  peasants  of  a  particular  village  openly 
avow  their  disbeUef  in  a  future  life.'^ 

^  Moscow  See's  News-letter,  1874,  p.  161. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE 

The  question  of  marriage  has  rent  asunder  the  Priestless  or 
Bezpopovtsy  society  from  the  very  first,  with  the  result  that 
there  are  two  groups  among  them,  each  numbering  millions  of 
souls,  one  known  as  the  married,  the  other  as  the  marriageless 
(bezbrachniki) .  It  is  evident  —  as  Uzov  remarks  —  that 
an  agricultiu"al  population  cannot  renounce  the  institution  and 
essay  to  Uve,  men  and  women  together,  as  brother  and  sister. 
Notwithstanding  so  obvious  a  truth,  a  polemic  has  raged  for  two 
centuries  among  these  good  people  about  the  matter  and  gen- 
erated an  infinity  of  tracts  for  or  against  marriage,  and  the 
issue  seems  as  far  as  ever  from  being  settled  by  any  common 
agreement.  Both  parties  of  course  appeal  to  Scripture,  but, 
after  all,  as  the  Bezpopovtsy  are  not  brutish,  ignorant  people, 
besotted  with  antiquated  superstitions,  we  shall  err  if  we  dis- 
miss their  various  solutions  as  unworthy  of  serious  study,  the 
more  so  as  their  conception  of  the  place  of  woman  in  the  social 
scheme  is  involved. 

Marriage  Among  the  Stranniki 

"The  Society  of  the  Beguny,"  says  Shchapov,"  ^  has  eman- 
cipated —  as  have  certain  other  Bezpopovtsy  communities  — 
the  poor  woman  from  the  position  she  occupied  of  a  chattel, 
imprisoned  as  it  were  and  restricted  to  a  Ufe  of  unending  toil"; 
they  have  raised  her  to  one  *'in  which  she  is  as  fundamentally 
important  in  the  Society  as  the  man."  ^  In  places  where  the 
influence  of  the  Beguny  has  made  itself  deeply  felt  it  is  become 
impossible  to  speak  to  wife  or  daughters  rudely,  or  even  to 
reprove  them  in  a  boorish  fashion.     The  man  who  did  so  would 

»  Vremya,  1862,  No.  11,  p.  280. 

^  The  Raskol  and  its  Significance  in  popular  Russian  History,  p.  251. 

189 


100  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

be  left  without  housekeeper  or  companion  to  help  him  in  his 
daily  toil.^ 

A  member  of  the  priestless  sect  has  described  the  true  posi- 
tion which  belongs  to  women,  "Family  life,"  he  writes,^  "is 
based  on  the  consciousness  of  mutual  love  in  husband  and  wife, 
of  their  equahty  of  rights  in  every  enterprise.  All  this  involves, 
as  all  know,  mutual  aid  in  counsel,  and  is  the  reward  of  the 
natural  capacities  of  both.  The  wife  must  not  claim  to  give 
up  the  task  of  bearing  children  and  bringing  them  up  in  order 
to  become  a  knight  errant.  She  must  not  abandon  the  cares 
that  centre  in  her  children,  and  set  out  to  interest  herself  in  the 
remote  ties  and  interests  of  nations  or  of  trade.  So  on  his  side 
the  husband  cannot  claim  to  bear  children  or  bring  them  up 
or  look  after  the  household,  to  the  abandonment  of  pubUc  and 
industrial  matters.  In  all  this  they  must  both  keep  to  the 
balance  prescribed  by  nature;  and  the  true  path  leading  ta 
mutual  life  is  loving  counsel  in  all  enterprises."  The  same 
author  contrasts  the  positions  which  woman  occupies  among 
the  infidels  (he  means  the  upper  classes),  among  religious 
people  (the  poorer  but  Orthodox  population),  and  in  his  own 
Society  respectively.  In  the  first  she  is  a  target  of  vain  infidel 
fancies:  in  the  second  she  is  an  unfortunate  servile  creature, 
condemned  to  perpetual  subjection  by  man:  in  the  third  cate- 
gory, that  of  the  Raskol,  which  he  terms  orthodoxy,  she  is  the 
precious  helpmate  of  the  man  and  the  half  of  his  soul.  Among 
them  she  is  no  victim  consecrated  to  pleasure,  as  she  is  among 
infidels,  but  is  reverenced  as  the  half  of  the  human  race,  and  is 
treated  with  the  deference  which  the  honest  love  of  a  true 
believer  and  a  pure  well-regulated  relationship  inspire.  The 
infidel  does  not  regard  woman  from  the  point  of  view  of  her 
moral  beauty,  for  he  does  not  look  forward  to  a  lifelong  union 
with  her  and  to  the  requirements  of  a  well-ordered  family  Ufe; 
he  only  thinks  of  her  outward  beauty  as  an  object  for  the  grati- 
fication of  his  lusts,  and  only  courts  her  until  it  is  extinguished, 
and  no  longer. 

^  Kelsiev,  Sbornik,  iv,  161. 

^  Istina,  1867.  Art.  Fruit  of  Life,  pub.  in  Johanisburg.  Those  who  know 
Russia  must  accuse  the  writer  of  considerable  exaggeration. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  191. 

Varieties  of  Opinion  among  the  Bezpopovtsy. 

Various  solutions  are  met  with  among  the  Bezpopovtsy 
of  the  marriage  problem,  but  all  agree  in  regarding  the  sexes 
as  having  equal  rights  one  with  the  other. 

Those  among  them  who  retain  marriage  argue  that  where  na 
priest  is  to  be  found  marriages  may  be  celebrated  without  any 
clerical  rite;  at  the  same  time  marriage  is  a  sacrament,  holy, 
ordained  by  God,  and  upheld  by  Christ.^  The  sacrament  of 
wedlock  was  created  by  God,  but  the  ceremony  of  crowning  is 
an  invention  of  the  civil  powers.^  True  marriage  consists  not 
in  crown  and  prayer,  but  in  the  dispositions  and  inclinations 
of  bride  and  bridegroom.  Priestly  rites  do  not  make  a  mar- 
riage, but  mutual  and  eternal  concord  of  man  and  wife.^ 

In  our  opinion,  they  say,  it  is  enough  if  father  and  mother 
bless  their  child's  union  with  anyone  and  if  the  couple  Uve 
a  godly  Ufe,  that  renders  the  marriage  legitimate.  The 
paternal  blessing  is  precious  above  everything;  and  in  this 
connection  they  point  out  that  the  Patriarchs,  for  example 
Abraham  and  others,  were  not  married  after  the  manner  of  the 
Church  with  aid  of  popes;  and  yet  no  one  can  say  that  they 
Uved  with  their  wives  illegally.^  Already  in  1838  the  marrying 
sect  of  the  Government  of  Kostroma  took  young  women  to 
wife  merely  with  the  assent  of  the  parents,  for  which  reason 
they  were  known  as  'self-binders,'  and  in  doing  so  they  fol- 
lowed the  example  of  their  co-religionists  of  the  Vyatka 
Government.^ 

We  can  conclude  from  such  passages  that  the  married  sect  of 
Bezpopovtsy,  while  denying  the  necessity  that  the  sacrament 
of  marriage  should  be  performed  by  a  priest,  equally  assert 
the  essence  of  the  sacrament  to  consist  in  an  agreement  of  the 
parties  to  the  marriage,  in  their  consent  to  a  perpetual  union, 

1  Istina,  1873,  March,  April. 

^  Among  the  People  of  Ancient  Piety,  Y.  Stebnitsi,  2nd.  ed.  p.  17. 

3  Notes  (zapiski)  of  Alexander  B.  Pt.  2,  p.  305.  The  Crown  is  the  nuptial 
wreath  kept  in  an  Orthodox  Church  and  laid  on  the  head  of  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom by  the  Pope  before  the  altar. 

*  Conversations  of  orthodox  priest,  with  Old  helievers,  by  Tverdynski,  pp.  322-4. 

*  Christian  Readings,  1869,  No.  6,  Art.  by  Nilsld,  p.  895. 


192  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  that  they  regard  the  will  or  intention  to  contract  the  mar- 
riage as  sufficient  consecration  of  their  union.  While  reject- 
ing the  rites  of  the  Church,  held  by  the  Church  essential  to 
any  marriage,  this  sect  preserves  the  substance  of  Church 
teaching,  that  is  to  say  the  perpetuity  of  the  marriage  union. 

There  is  great  difficulty  in  getting  at  the  truth  about  the 
family  Ufe  of  these  people  owing  to  the  calumnies  spread  abroad 
about  them  either  wilfully  or  from  pure  ignorance  by  Russian 
publicists.  When  I  first  visited  Russia  in  1881  in. company 
with  the  late  Mr.  WiUiam  John  Birkbeck,  and  made  inquiry, 
I  was  told  that  the  Government  was  tolerant  of  the  Old 
believers  as  a  whole,  but  drew  the  Une  at  those  sects  which 
rejected  marriage  and  lived  promiscuously.  It  never  occurred 
to  me  at  the  time  that  what  they  really  rejected  was  the  Church 
ceremony  and  sacrament  of  marriage,  with  which,  having  no 
priests  nor  being  allowed  to  have  any  by  the  Government, 
they  had  no  choice  but  to  dispense.  Most  students  of  the 
Raskol,  says  Uzov,  have  maintained  that  the  marriageless 
group  of  the  Priestless  ones  reject  the  institution  of  the  family 
and  affect  asceticism.  The  sectaries,  he  points  out,  are  them- 
selves largely  to  blame  for  this,  because  they  use  words,  not 
in  their  natural  and  ordinary  sense,  but  in  an  artificial  one  of 
their  own.  This  has  led  investigators  to  argue  as  if  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  their  doctrine  was  the  preservation  of 
'virginity.'  If  it  were  really  so,  they  would  eschew  family 
life  and  Uve  as  monks  and  nuns,  which  they  certainly  do  not. 
The  problem  is  no  doubt  obscured  by  the  way  in  which  they 
preach  'virginity'  as  a  religious  ideal,  and  yet  accompany 
the  teaching  with  permission  to  men  and  women  to  "love  one 
another"  as  they  Uke,  so  long  as  they  do  not  marry.^  The 
obvious  inference  is  that,  under  the  cloak  of  asceticism  they 
practice  debauchery  and  go  about  to  destroy  all  family  imions; 
yet  the  inference  is  wholly  wrong. 

The  requirement  of  'virginity'  is  usually  based  by  these 
sectaries  on  the  circumstance  that  "the  hands  of  priests  have 
crumbled  into  dust,"  in  other  words,  no  priests  survive  to 

^  i.e.  in  a  Nikonian  Church.  See  Family  Life  in  the  Raskol,  by  Nilski,  Pt.  2, 
p.  83. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  193 

perform  the  rite  of  marriage.  No  man  or  woman  therefore 
can  any  more  be  'married'  in  the  old  sense,  and  all  must  remain 
to  that  extent  luimarried  or  technically  'virgins';  but  this 
does  not  preclude  the  existence  broadcast  among  them  of 
permanent  family  unions.  Uzov  raises  the  question  why, 
as  they  allow  laymen  to  celebrate  sacraments  of  baptism  and 
penance,  they  do  not  allow  them  equally  to  celebrate  marriage, 
and  continue  to  regard  it  as  a  sacrament.  That  they  do  not 
is  apparently  due  to  the  exigencies  of  debate  and  discussion  of 
the  matter  with  other  rival  sects.  In  such  debates  it  has  been 
customary  with  both  sides  to  make  the  Bible  the  referee  — 
though  not  always;  for  one  of  the  sect,  Ilia  Alexieiev  KovyUn,^ 
defending  his  position  against  the  marrying  sect,  who  recog- 
nize the  legitimacy  and  sacramental  character  of  marriages  con- 
tracted later  than  1666,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed:  "I  will  not 
accept  from  you  any  bookish  evidence,  so  do  not  quote  to  me 
the  seven  ecumenical  councils  or  the  nine  local  ones,  or  the 
apostolic  canons.  If  you  do  I  shall  answer  you  that  even  if 
Christ  descended  with  the  angels  from  heaven  and  bade  me 
accept  in  my  communion  such  'new'  marriages,  I  would  reply 
to  him:  I  won't  Usten  to  you,  Christ."  This  elegant  extract 
is  from  a  debate  on  the  subject  of  marriage  held  between  the 
Bezpopovtsy  of  the  Transfiguration  Cemetery  and  the  members 
of  the  Pokrovski  oratory  in  Moscow,  cited  by  K.  Nadezhdin, 
oj).  cit.  p.  38. 

There  have  been,  says  Uzov,  among  the  section  of  the  Raskol 
that  rejects  marriage,  plenty  of  teachers  who  preached  and 
practised  the  monastic  ideal;  but  it  is  certain  that  they  never 
led  opinion  nor  lead  it  now.  The  mass  of  adherents  formed 
family  unions  from  the  first  without  attending  to  them. 
They  listened  rather  to  such  of  their  teachers  as,  xmder  the 
emblem  or  cloak  of  'virginity,'  inculcated  among  the  people 
the  form  of  family  Ufe  to  which  they  aspire  in  obedience  to  their 
instinctive  feelings  for  freedom  and  independence.  The 
'  marriageless '  sectary  may  not  approve  of  unions  concluded 
for  the  whole  of  life,  but  find  it  a  bm-den.  He  aspires  to 
another  type  of  conjugal  relationship,  a  type  which  more 

^  President  of  the  Preobrazhenski  cemetery  in  Moscow.     He  died  in  1808. 


194  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

nearly  approximates  to  the  ancient  Slavonic  free  union,  dis- 
soluble by  the  will  of  either  party.  He  has  scanty  regard  for 
the  Byzantine  type  of  family  which  has  only  gained  currency 
in  Russia  during  the  last  few  centuries.  He  does  not  derive 
his  notions  of  family  obUgations  and  felicity  from  the  canon 
law,  but  from  hving  principles  engrained  in  the  character  of 
the  people.  But  at  the  same  time  that  he  insists  on  family 
freedom,  he  is  far  from  discarding  the  family  as  students  of 
the  Raskol  imagine,  misled  by  their  terminology.  It  all  comes 
of  the  mistaken  endeavour  of  the  exponents  of  the  'marriage- 
less'  doctrine  to  justify  the  life  and  practice  of  their  brethren 
from  Scripture,  instead  of  basing  it  on  sociological  principles 
common  to  all  peoples.  Their  teachers  committed  and  com- 
mit this  solecism  of  trying  to  find  in  Hebrew  literature  a  scheme 
of  social  organization  for  their  sect,  because  in  Russia  (as  among 
ourselves)  the  religious  point  of  view  was  the  point  of  view  of 
the  people,  who  were  on  a  plane  of  culture  that  was  not  ripe 
for  any  other  mode  of  apprehending  social  phenomena.  The 
Raskol  teachers  had  no  books  save  those  of  traditional  Chris- 
tianity, and  naturally  sought  in  these  an  explanation  and  justi- 
fication of  everything.  In  spite,  however,  of  their  lucubrations 
the  hfe  and  institutions  of  the  Raskol  masses  have  developed 
along  the  lines  of  human  nature,  in  accordance  with  the  feelings 
and  affections  of  the  common  man  and  woman.  No  theo- 
logical cobwebs  could  hamper  these.  In  Russian  upper  classes 
writers  scientifically  trained  have  approached  these  subjects 
from  a  secular  point  of  view  and  written  books  about  them; 
but  neither  these  nor  the  culture  they  represent,  have  yet  pene- 
trated to  the  people,  and  the  circumstance  that  they  are  written 
by  and  for  a  class  theoretically  hostile  to  the  masses,  is  enough 
to  hamper  their  circulation  among  the  latter. 

Such  is  Uzov's  view.  Students  of  Greek  history  will  recall 
the  feeUng  in  ancient  Athens  against  the  reforms  of  Kleisthenes 
immediately  after  the  Persian  wars;  yet  all  he  aimed  at  was  to 
base  popular  representation  on  arithmetic  instead  of  upon 
tribal  units  descended  in  popular  imagination  from  eponymous 
and  legendary  heroes,  if  not  from  totems.  The  feehng  was  so 
strong  against  touching  the  rehgious  unit  that  it  was  left  alone, 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  195 

and  the  deme  or  canton  reserved  for  purposes  of  political 
organization. 

In  proof  that  the  '  marriageless '  Raskol  did  not  repudiate 
family  life  and  unions,  even  long  ago,  when  ascetic  teaching 
was  much  more  highly  esteemed  than  it  is  to-day  among  them, 
Uzov  appeals  to  a  '  canon '  or  rule  of  life  which  was  in  vogue  in 
the  Theodosian  sect,  by  which  the  faithful  were  instructed 
"not  to  hold  shameful  the  living  in  one  house  or  home  with 
wife,  stranger  and  children.  Even  if  generation  be  accounted 
abominable,  it  is  yet  not  to  be  regarded  as  forbidden.  Virgins 
who  have  borne  children  are  to  pass  muster  as  virgins  even  if 
their  offspring  number  fifteen.  ''Let  this  be  the  rule  you 
observe,"  runs  the  canon  ''but  do  not  marry  on  any  account. 
You  can  always  repent  and  do  penance  and  become  afresh 
the  virgin  (male  or  female)  you  were  before." 

The  idea  of  penance  here  involved  is  that  which  became 
normal  in  the  Great  Church  towards  the  end  of  the  second 
Century.  According  to  it  the  sin  of  fornication  can  be  atoned 
for  and  obhterated  by  confession  and  absolution.  The  sin 
being  thus  wiped  out,  the  man  or  woman  who  was  guilty  of  it 
becomes  once  more  sinless,  in  other  words,  becomes  a  'virgin' 
and  chaste  as  before.  By  this  device  a  sufficiently  indulgent 
confessor  can  dovetail  family  life  into  the  somewhat  rigorous 
ideal  of  enthusiasts  prone  to  beheve  that  with  the  carnal  hand 
of  the  ordained  priest  the  charisma,  or  sacramental  gift  of 
marriage  from  God  has  been  for  ever  lost  among  men.  If  we 
desire  proof  that  this  controversial  maintenance  of  virginity 
interfered  Uttle  with  family  hfe  and  propagation  of  children 
among  the  '  marriageless '  Bezpopovtsy,  we  have  it  in  the  fact 
that  in  the  third,  eighth,  and  tenth  registers  compiled  and 
revised  in  the  XVIIIth  Century  by  Imperial  authority  we  find 
inscribed  the  names  not  only  of  the  wives  of  the  'marriageless' 
Bezpopovtsy,  but  of  their  children  as  well,  together  with  the 
names  of  the  husbands  and  fathers.  The  information  on  which 
these  registers  were  based  was  suppUed  by  the  sectaries  them- 
selves and  shows  that  family  life  was  universal  among  them  as 
far  back  as  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great. 

These  considerations  are  necessary  to  correct  and  supple- 


196  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

ment  the  pages  of  Ivanovski,  who  labours  under  the  common 
delusion  that  the  attribution  to  marriage  of  a  sacramental 
character  can  alone  guarantee  its  existence  and  permanence. 
Yet  unless  people  were  independently  and  by  old  racial  tradi- 
tion (as  are  most  of  the  Indo-Germanic  peoples)  imbued  with 
respect  for  the  marriage  union,  it  could  not  be  kept  sacred; 
if  people  had  not  the  instinct  to  marry  one  wife  and  live  exclu- 
sively with  her,  no  sacramental  system  or  theory  would  make 
them  do  so. 

Theodosius  Vasilev 

Ivanovski  relates  that  the  earUest  Priestless  settlement  at 
Vyg  was  founded  along  monastic  Unes,  and  that  it  was  not 
before  1696,  when  Theodosius  Vasilev,  formerly  a  deacon  of 
Novgorod,  seceded  from  it  and  formed  a  colony  of  his  own 
on  the  northwest  Hmits  of  Polsk  or  Poland,  that  wedlock  was 
allowed,  and  Theodosius  even  then  only  admitted  of  conjugal 
relations  between  men  and  women  in  his  colony  who  had  been 
married  before  1666.  These  unions,  we  gather,  were  termed 
old  marriages  in  contrast  with  new  marriages  of  a  later  date. 
Awakum  had  laid  it  down  that,  if  you  can  get  no  priest  to 
marry  you,  then  you  had  better  live  single;  and  rather  than 
break  with  the  Pomorian  communities  Theodosius  had  refused 
to  recognize  other  than  old  marriages,  and  would  not  recognize 
new  ones  as  sacramental  unions  at  all.  After  his  death,  says 
Ivanovski,  the  Theodosian  congregation  refused  to  recognize 
even  old  marriages.  These  communities  were  thus  definitely 
committed  to  abrogation  of  marriage  and  chastity  made 
obhgatory  for  all. 

But  naturam  expellas  furca  licet,  usque  redibit.  It  was  not 
long  before  human  natiu-e  asserted  her  rights,  and  there  were 
Raskol  writers  who  complained  loudly  of  the  declension  from 
moral  standards  visible  both  in  the  Vygovski  desert  (or  hermit- 
age) and  among  the  followers  of  the  deceased  Theodosius. 
The  entire  community  was  filled,  according  to  the  testimony  of 
upholders  of  the  monkish  ideal,  with  fornication  and  obscenity. 
In  order,  however,  to  estimate  aright  such  assertions  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  the  abrogation  of  the  sacrament  of  marriage 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  197 

for  want  of  priests  in  itself  placed  all  relations  between  the 
sexes  in  the  category  of  fornication  in  the  eyes  of  members  of 
the  straiter  sect.  To  remedy  the  evil,  Vyschatin,  a  member 
of  the  Pomorski  colony,  set  off  to  the  east  in  hope  of  finding  a 
genuine  priest  to  return  with  him  and  regularize  unions,  but 
he  failed  and  died  abroad. 


Ivan  Alexiev 

Nature  and  religion  had  in  some  way  to  be  reconciled,  and 
the  most  brilUant  attempt  was  that  of  a  young  and  energetic 
member  of  the  Theodosian  Settlement,  Ivan  Alexiev,  who  raised 
his  voice  against  the  fiction  of  virginity,  boldly  advocated 
the  restitution  of  marriage  and  urged  his  brethren  to  resort  to 
the  Orthodox  Churches  for  the  purpose  of  getting  married,  argu- 
ing that,  as  heretics  and  even  non-Christians  went  to  be  mar- 
ried in  them,  the  faithful  might  do  the  same. 

Ivanovski  remarks  that  this  solution  found  favour  not  only 
with  the  'old  married'  members  of  the  Theodosian  Pomorski 
colonies,  but  also  with  the  'newly  married,'  and  gave  great 
relief  to  both  sets.^  He  also  records  that  the  elders  or  leaders 
of  the  communities  which  Alexiev  thus  tried  to  reform,  de- 
nounced him  as  a  dangerous  Ubertine  and  drunkard.  In  1752^ 
a  council  of  the  Theodosians  decided  not  to  admit  his  'newly 
married'  followers  to  their  public  prayers,  not  to  hve  or  eat  with 
them,  not  to  wash  in  the  same  bath,  nor  even  admit  them 
to  repentance,  even  if  they  were  in  peril  of  death,  not  to  baptize 
their  children  or  even  kiss  them.  Even  their  wives  were  not 
to  be  assisted  in  the  throes  of  childbirth.  This  sentence  was 
practically  one  of  excommunication,  but  in  practise  it  was 
abated  by  permission,  after  repentance  and  rebaptism,  to  live 
apart  in  the  community.  The  result  was  the  elimination  of 
the  reformed.  Many,  says  Ivanovski,  passed  into  other  sects, 
others  left  their  wives  and  chose  for  themselves  cooks  and 
so-forth  as  companions.    This  last  statement  that  they  forsook 

^  By  the  'old-married'  he  must  mean  those  who  had  sought  the  Sacrament 
at  the  hands  of  Orthodox  priests,  fugitives  or  others. 
^  Ace.  to  Macarius  in  1751. 


198  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

their  wives  barely  agrees  with  the  canon  of  the  Theodosian  sect 
adduced  by  Uzov  and  cited  by  us  above. 

Reading  between  the  lines  one  can  see  that  the  orthodox 
historian  is  too  anxious  to  magnify  the  role  played  by  his 
Church  in  the  developments  of  the  Bezpopovtsy  sect  and  that 
he  has  no  such  clear  apprehension  of  the  true  state  of  affairs  as 
has  Uzov.  It  is  probable  that  the  canon  adduced  by  the  latter 
is  one  of  those  fixed  by  the  Theodosian  assembly  of  1752  and 
that  it  was  the  rough  handling  of  the  semi-orthodox  'reformer' 
at  this  council  that  led  him  to  secede  and  form  a  sect  of  his  own 
in  1757.  Of  this  sect  Ivanovski  records  no  further  details. 
What  he  next  relates,  however,  of  the  Pomorian  elders  is  thor- 
oughly credible  and  confirms  Uzov's  conclusions.  For  he 
states  that  they  also  rejected  Alexiev's  reform  of  sending  the 
faithful  to  get  married  in  orthodox  Churches;  but  that  they 
were  more  indulgent  to  the  'newly  married,'  admitting  them  to 
penance  for  their  offence  and  to  prayers  and  baptizing  their 
children.  Obviously  'newly  married'  here  means  men  and 
women  who,  in  spite  of  the  ideal  of  enforced  virginity,  main- 
tained regular,  but  non-sacramental,  conjugal  unions;  for  he 
has  declared,  immediately  before,  that  marriages  by  orthodox 
priests  were  abhorred  in  Pomor. 

We  can  also  well  beHeve  his  next  statement,  that  what  was 
at  first  only  allowed  by  way  of  exception  under  protest,  and  as  a 
pis  oiler  in  the  Pomorski  congregations,  gradually  became  the 
rule,  and  that  married  life  was  in  that  society  so  much  more 
thoroughly  legitimized  than  among  the  Theodosians  as  to 
become  in  the  second  half  of  the  XVIIIth  Century  the  dividing 
line  between  the  two. 

Paul  Miliukov's  account  of  Alexiev's  contribution  to  the  mar- 
riage controversy  in  his  Outlines  of  Russian  Civihzation  (ed.  4, 
pt.  4,  Petersb.  1905)  is  valuable.  It  took  precedence,  he  says, 
over  all  other  matters  in  dispute,  not  merely  personal,  such  as 
rebaptism,  prayers  for  the  Tsar,  submission  to  the  extra  taxes 
and  to  registration;  for  the  austerest  of  the  sectaries  had  to 
admit  the  impossibility  of  avoiding  all  contact  between  the  'fire' 
and  the  '  hay.'  As  a  matter  of  form  they  continued  to  insist  on 
male  and  female  chastity,  sexual  unions  being  no  better  than 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  199 

fornication  in  the  absence  of  priests  and  after  abrogation  of  the 
marriage  sacrament;  but  in  practise  they  were  reduced  to 
winking  at  such  imions.  Theodosius,  the  scribe  of  the  Ej-es- 
tetski  village,  though  on  other  points  he  was  more  intransigent 
than  Andrew  Denisov  (d.  1730)  and  had  therefore  forsaken  the 
settlement  of  Vyg,  forming  new  ones  in  the  S.  W.  of  the  province 
of  Novgorod  and  in  Poland,  was  nevertheless  more  compUant 
in  regard  to  marriage,  and  recognized  as  legitimate  'new' 
marriages  celebrated  in  Nikonian  chm-ches,  which  to  his  mind, 
of  course,  were  heretical.  Andrew  Denisov,  though  addicted 
to  compromise  in  such  a  matter  as  praying  for  the  Tsar  in  his 
community  on  the  Vyg,  insisted  to  the  end  of  his  life  on  con- 
tinence. Even  he,  however,  as  we  saw,  was  obliged  to  confine 
his  principles  to  the  monastery  and  permit  unions  in  the  sketes 
around  it. 

Ivan  Alexiev's  remarkable  work  on  the  Sacrament  of  mar- 
riage only  appeared  in  1762,  thirty-four  years  after  he  had 
first  broached  his  solution  to  Andrew  Denisov.  In  the 
interval  he  had  busied  himself  collecting  material  and  spread- 
ing his  views.  What  in  this  work  he  chiefly  insists  upon  is 
this,  that  the  primitive  Church  never  repeated  the  marriage 
sacrament  in  the  case  of  couples  who  joined  it  after  having 
been  married  according  to  the  usages  and  formulae  of  other 
rehgions.  It  recognized  therefore  the  vaUdity  of  unions  con- 
tracted in  other  circles  of  faith  than  its  own,  so  evincing  the 
truth  that  the  charisma  of  marriage  is  not  bound  up  with 
the  use  of  any  particular  rite.  In  this  respect,  he  argued, 
holy  wedlock  differs  from  other  sacraments,  and  he  appealed 
to  the  Russian  Greater  Catechism,  which  defines  it  as  a  sacra- 
ment "by  and  in  which  man  and  wife  out  of  pure  love  in  their 
hearts  frame  an  agreement  and  mutual  vow.  The  agent  and 
author  thereof  is  God  himself  who  implanted  in  living  creatures 
the  instinct  to  increase  and  multiply;  and  this  instinct  coupled 
with  loving  agreement  between  the  wedded"  constitutes  the 
essence  of  the  sacrament.  All  else,  he  argued,  is  mere  formal- 
ity. The  priest  is  only  a  witness  to  the  union  in  behalf  of  the 
pubUc,  and  the  church  ceremony  is  at  best  a  popular  custom, 
giving  popular  assent  thereto,  ratifying  it,  and  investing  it 


200  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

with  civil  validity.  True,  in  order  to  safeguard  its  durability 
marriage  needs  a  rite,  but  the  rite  is  a  mere  form,  of  later 
manifestation,  in  written  law.  The  thing  itself  is  a  part 
of  natural  law,  independent  of  and  earUer  than  any  cere- 
mony or  rite.  Here,  he  argues,  we  have  a  reason  why  the 
Bezpopovtsy  Chiu-ch  should,  in  imitation  of  the  primitive, 
recognize  a  marriage  celebrated  in  a  Nikonian  Church,  for  it  is 
merely  a  pubhc  testimony  to  the  union,  whereas  the  sacrament 
itself  is  administered  by  God  and  consummated  in  the  mutual 
affection  of  man  and  wife. 

Such  a  novel  argument  naturally  shocked  extremists,  but 
Alexiev  defended  it  on  the  ground  that  the  Raskol  were  no 
longer  Uving,  hke  their  progenitors,  in  the  wilds  of  the  desert. 
They  were  now  hving  in  the  world,  and  had  to  protect  the 
young  against  its  temptations.  His  work  therefore  marked  a 
fresh  stage  in  the  reconciliation  of  the  Dissenters  with  the 
actualities  of  life,  which  could  only  be  escaped  by  fresh  flights 
into  the  wilderness  and  even  by  seK-inamolation  as  of  old.  But 
the  question  was  not  settled  by  his  book;  it  even  became  a 
more  burning  one  than  that  of  ritual  reception  among  the 
Popovtsy  of  runaway  members  of  the  orthodox  clergy.  Over 
both  questions  the  moderates  were  at  issue  with  the  extremists. 
The  more  accormnodating  of  the  Popovtsy  were  approximating 
to  the  teaching  of  the  dominant  Church;  the  Priestless  ones 
were  in  principle  challenging  the  very  bases  of  estabUshed 
religion  and  embarking  on  the  uncharted  main  of  free  reUgious 
creation.  The  victory  of  moderation  among  the  former  on 
the  point  of  reanointing  was  only  a  partial  return  to  the  admis- 
sion of  a  clergy  whose  orders  they  began  by  rejecting;  the 
victory  in  the  matter  of  marriage  was  a  recognition  of  a  law 
of  nature  behind  and  paramount  over  Church  traditions  and 
supposed  Christian  revelation.  In  neither  case  however, 
was  the  victory  complete,  but  followed  by  fresh  struggles  and 
even  wider  breaches  of  unity. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  Ivanovski  does  not  all  through  confuse 
cohabitation  with  debauchery  and  wilful  concubinage,  owing 
to  his  prejudice  that  marriage  is  nothing  else,  unless  it  be  con- 
tracted on  sacramental  Unes;  and  the  Bezpopovtsy,  in  so  far  as 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  201 

they  formally  rejected  marriage  on  this  very  ground,  while 
materially  they  accepted  the  institution,  were  themselves 
responsible  for  the  confusion.  Sacramental  rigorism  inevitably 
leads  to  such  paradoxes  in  other  countries  than  Russia.  Thus 
the  Protestant  Churches  in  the  eye  of  Latin  doctors  have  no 
orders,  no  priests,  and  therefore  no  sacraments,  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  baptism.  They  cannot  therefore  marry  men 
and  women;  Protestant  married  couples  to  one  who  literally 
accepts  the  Latin  view,  are  living  in  mere  concubinage.  This 
however  does  not  prevent  Catholics  from  living  on  terms  of  the 
closest  friendship  and  purest  charity  with  their  Protestant 
neighbours;  though  they  would  ostracize  people,  whether  of 
their  own  faith  or  not,  who  were  simply  living  together  without 
having  been  married  in  Church  or  before  a  registrar.  This 
means  that  in  spite  of  the  rigour  of  their  doctrines  they  accept 
marriages  duly  contracted  according  to  the  law  of  the  State  in 
which  they  Uve,  and  so  far  assent  to  the  doctrine  cuius  regio, 
eius  religio.  But  the  Bezpopovtsy  had  never  heard  of  any  form 
of  marriage  but  the  sacramental  and  reUgious  one.  Under 
stress  of  circumstances  they  invented  civil  marriage,  and 
Ivanovski  and  others  have  as  Uttle  right  to  say  that  they 
reject  marriage  and  live  in  debauchery  or  concubinage  as 
CathoUcs  would  have  to  say  the  same  thing  of  their  Protes- 
tant neighbours. 

I.  A.  Kovylin 

Such  sacramentaUst  prejudice  probably  colours  Macarius' 
and  Ivanovski 's  account  of  the  Thedosievski  teacher,  I.  A. 
KovyUn.  Owing  to  the  tolerant  policy  of  Catharine  II  this 
sect,  we  saw,  as  also  the  Pomorians,  were  allowed  to  establish 
centres  in  Moscow  in  the  year  1771;  and  the  Thedosievski 
colony  over  which  Kovylin  presided  was,  as  we  saw  above, 
known  imder  the  unassuming  name  of  the  Preobrazhenski  or 
Transfiguration  Cemetery.  In  spite  of  want  of  education 
Kovylin  was  a  remarkable  man  whose  reputation  extended 
from  Riga  to  Astrakhan,  and  his  own  adherents  went  on  their 
knees  to  him  and  kissed  his  hand  out  of  reverence.  In  Peters- 
burg as  in  Moscow  his  interest  and  influence  extended  far 


202  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

beyond  his  own  religious  circle.  He  was  true  to  the  tenets  of 
the  founder  of  his  sect  Theodosius  Vasilev,  in  that  he  con- 
demned marriage,  carrying  his  prejudice  against  it  so  far, 
according  to  Ivanovski,  as  to  condemn  as  lecherous  unions  '  old 
marriages,'  i.e.  marriages  contracted  in  the  Nikonian  Church, 
of  which,  as  savouring  of  Antichrist,  Kovylin  would  naturally 
not  approve.  At  the  same  time,  says  Ivanovski,  Kovyhn  was 
most  severe  "upon  the  violations  of  moral  purity  inseparable 
from  the  obligation  not  to  marry."  Until  his  time  (1776)  these 
declensions  had  been  regarded  in  the  sect  as  deplorable  inci- 
dents requiring  healing  treatment.  But  the  fact  that  in- 
numerable persons  had  taken  shelter  in  his  asylum  or  hospital 
settlement  who  had  been  married  in  that  church  seems  to  have 
driven  Kovyhn  to  adopt  a  new  point  of  view.  He  was  merci- 
less to  those  caught  flagrante  delicto,  in  open  sin,  but  lenient 
and  consoling  to  those  who  knew  how  to  conceal  their  sins,  and 
so  he  connived  at  their  secret  immorality.  ''Sin  conunitted 
in  secret,  is  in  secret  to  be  judged.  Without  sin  there  is  no 
penitence,  and  without  penitence,  no  salvation.  In  paradise 
are  many  sinners,  but  no  heretics."  Such  is  the  express  teach- 
ing which  Ivanovski  attributes  to  Kovyhn,  accusing  him  of 
replacing  the  moral  obligation  of  chastity  by  the  doctrine  that 
people  in  view  of  the  denial  of  married  life  had  a  moral  license 
to  sin,  only  encouraging  his  chartered  libertines  to  become 
hypocrites  as  well.  He  adds  —  what  is  incredible  — that 
Kovyhn's  followers  were  shocked  at  their  leader's  cynicism, 
and  yet  adopted  his  conviction  that  casual  and  secret  unions 
were  better  morally  and  reUgiously  than  open  and  avowed 
married  Ufe,  because  the  hero  of  gallant  adventures  sins  and 
repents,  while  the  avowed  husband  and  wife  complacently 
acquiesce  in  their  open  and  avowed  sin.  This  recalls  the  doc- 
trine that  wedlock  is  the  mains  adulterium,  put  forward  by  the 
Cathars,  who,  Uke  the  early  Christian  Encratites,  condemned  all 
sexual  unions  licit  or  illicit. 

It  is,  however,  easy  to  discern  that  all  Kovyhn  was  really 
guilty  of  was  a  desperate  attempt  to  reconcile  the  innocent 
needs  of  human  society  with  the  sacramentahst  conception  of 
marriage  which  the  Raskol  had  carried  in  its  bosom  into  exile. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  203 

He  was  not  advising  his  followers  to  live  promiscuously  and  sin 
the  more  in  order  that  grace  might  the  more  abound.  There 
were,  no  doubt,  fanatics  inside  the  sect  who  condemned  all 
sexual  unions  as  being  impossible  and  wrong  in  the  absence  of 
genuine  priests  who  should  sacramentally  consecrate  them; 
and  in  Moscow,  Petersburg  and  other  cities  in  which  Catharine 
II  had  allowed  the  sect  to  settle,  there  were  plenty  of  orthodox 
critics  ready  to  accuse  the  Raskolniks  of  debauchery,  because 
they  contracted  unions  which  could  not,  even  from  the  Raskol 
point  of  view,  much  less  from  their  own,  be  termed  marriages. 
Kovylin  may  perhaps  have  advised  his  followers  not  to  expose 
themselves  to  orthodox  attacks,  more  than  they  need,  by  flaunt- 
ing their  non-sacramental  unions  before  the  eyes  of  their  ortho- 
dox neighbours.  That  he  applied  the  sacrament  of  penance  to 
help  his  followers  out  of  the  reHgious  dilemma  in  which  they 
found  themselves  and  to  soothe  the  perplexed  consciences  of  the 
weaker  brethren  among  them, —  that  much  we  can  safely 
gather  from  Ivanovski's  uncertain  paragraphs,  but  no  more. 

New  marriages  in  the  sect  were  not,  as  might  be  supposed, 
those  for  celebration  of  which  the  sectaries  repaired,  according 
to  the  counsels  of  Ivan  Alexiev  (1750),  to  orthodox  churches; 
the  so-called  'newly  married,'  were  rather  those  who  regarded 
themselves  as  married  in  spite  of  the  circumstance  that  real 
priesthood  had  come  to  an  abrupt  end  in  1666,  those,  namely, 
of  the  sectaries  who  held  with  the  Apostle  that  "marriage  is 
holy  and  the  wedding  couch  undefiled."  Two  bourgeois 
members  of  the  Pokrovski  Oratory  (as  the  Pomorski  called  an 
establishment  which  Catharine  allowed  them  to  found  in 
Moscow  about  1770),  bearing  the  names  Vasili  Emelyanov 
and  Gabriel  Skachkov,  drew  from  the  Apostle's  very  sensible 
doctrine  of  wedlock  the  corollary  that  it  might  be  celebrated 
not  by  priests  alone  but  by  laymen  as  well,  in  the  same  way 
that  laymen  could  confer  baptism  and  admit  their  brethren  to 
repentance  after  confession  of  their  sins. 

This  was  a  beneficent  reform,  for  it  removed  from  Pomorski 
unions  the  stigma  of  being  irreligious.  It  was,  as  Ivanovski 
says,  "a  great  step  in  the  development  of  Bezpopovtsy  doc- 
trine," but  such  an  innovation  startled  the  Vygovski  conmiun- 


204  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

ity  of  the  Pomorskis  and  they  challenged  Emelyanov  to  justify 
it.  Their  elders  adhered  to  the  old  sacramental  prejudice  and 
Emelyanov  submitted  to  their  decision  for  a  time;  but  when 
Catharine  II  granted  civil  rights  to  the  Old  believers  and  they 
took  to  hving  in  cities,  the  need  to  regularize  the  situation  was 
felt  so  acutely  by  the  whole  Pomorski  sect  that  the  Vygovski 
authorities  gave  in  to  him. 

The  new  compromise  was,  according  to  Ivanovski,  this: 
Marriage  unions  were  legitimately  contracted,  if  the  bride  and 
bridegroom  agreed  to  join  their  lives  indissolubly.  The 
approval  and  blessing  of  their  parents  was  essential,  and  the 
wedding  was  accompanied  with  prayers  and  hymns  expressly 
composed.  This  rule  was  adopted  by  the  Pomorski  of  Moscow 
and  presently  by  those  of  Pomor,  Archangel  and  elsewhere, 
and  all  schism  was  thus  avoided  on  the  question  —  a  splendid 
victory  of  common-sense.  Ivanovski  is  right  in  saying  that 
hereby  the  Pomorski  had  really  elaborated  a  new  sacrament. 
He  gives  an  interesting  picture  of  the  circimistances  of  such 
weddings,  under  the  impression  apparently  that  they  were 
peculiar  to  this  sect.  Matchmakers  were  sent  in  advance  to  the 
bride's  house,  the  bridegroom's  visits  and  handshakings  were 
arranged,  and  the  betrothed  interchanged  their  rings.  Then 
each  party  promised  to  accept  the  other  for  life,  and  finally  the 
union  was  celebrated  by  the  Elder  in  the  chapel  or  oratory. 

The  Theodosian  sect,  however,  in  KovyUn's  settlement, 
seems  to  have  adhered  to  their  old  view  of  'no  popes,  no  mar- 
riages,' a  dictum  of  Awakum,  reminding  us  in  form  at  least  of 
Disraeli's  answer  to  a  latitudinarian  Anglican  divine  who, 
aspiring  no  less  to  livings  than  to  immortal  life,  solicited  a  fat 
deanery  at  his  hands.  His  answer  was :  No  dogma,  no  deans. 
In  Moscow  the  representatives  of  the  two  sects  seems  to  have 
sustained  a  lively  polemic  on  the  subject,  each  being  anxious 
to  secure  its  predominance  in  the  Bezpopovtsy  world,  and  the 
Theodosian  sect  who  owned  the  Bezpopovtsy  cemetery  made 
themselves  disagreeable  to  their  rivals  who  shared  it  with  them 
and  lacked  one  of  their  own.  Kovyhn  relegated  them  to  a 
damp  comer  of  it  where  their  graves  were  flooded.  At  times 
the  Pomorski  were  not  allowed  into  it,  and  found  that  the 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  205 

rigorous  adherents  of  sacramental  marriage  took  the  plaques 
on  which  were  inscribed  their  epitaphs  as  well  as  their  crosses, 
and  used  them  as  fuel.  In  the  end  they  had  to  summon  to 
their  aid  the  police  of  Antichrist. 

It  is  possible  that  Ivanovski  exaggerates  the  petty  bickerings 
between  the  two  groups;  but  he  allows  that  KovyUn  was  so 
struck  towards  the  end  of  his  life  by  the  triumph  of  priestless 
marriage  among  the  Pomorksi  as  to  relax  his  ascetic  ideal  and 
consent  to  couples  married  before  they  were  rebaptized  and 
joined  his  sect  living  together  in  'chastity,'  i.e.  as  "virgins," 
only  punishing  their  breaches  of  chastity  and  childbirth  by  a 
short  term  of  penance. 

In  Petersburg,  then  the  Theodosian  teachers  already  during 
Kovylin's  lifetime  winked  at  quasi-matrimonial  unions  and 
raised  no  difficulty  about  baptizing  the  offspring  of  them;  after 
his  death  his  followers  did  the  same.  They  continued  to  regard 
non-sacramental  marriage  as  an  evil  to  be  tolerated,  a  com- 
promise between  the  inculcation  of  celibacy  for  all  and  the 
exigencies  of  human  life.  The  Thedosievski  wife  is  a  wife 
before  the  world,  but  before  God  a  fornicatress.  She  was 
formerly  known  among  the  sectaries,  not  as  a  wife,  but  as 
housekeeper,  manageress,  cook,  companion,  hostess  —  occupy- 
ing therefore  very  much  the  same  position  as  was  held  in  the 
middle  ages  by  the  priests'  concubines,  when  the  priests 
enjoyed  every  imaginable  license  so  long  only  as  they  did  not 
marry.  The  Thedosievski  couples  also,  according  to  Maca- 
rius  and  Ivanovski,  are  not  full  members  of  the  congregation; 
they  are  admitted  nowadays  to  divine  service,  but  only  given 
a  place  behind  the  congregation,  and  instead  of  joining  in  the 
prayers,  only  allowed  to  listen  to  them.  When  the  Elder 
censes  the  congregation,  they  do  not  hold  out  their  hands  to 
catch  the  perfume,  like  the  faithful;  in  a  word  they  are  treated 
as  half  beUevers,  half  excommunicates,  as  auditores  or  peni- 
tents in  the  early  church.  For  the  sin  of  child-birth  the  wife 
is  subjected  to  penance  or  iiriTiixia-  except  in  grave  sickness 
they  are  not  admitted  to  confession,  and  then  have  to  promise 
not  to  cohabit  any  more. 

Ivanovski  describes  the  peculiar  and  original  type  of  mar- 


206  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

riage  formerly  in  vogue  in  this  sect,  and  seems  to  regard  it  as 
due  to  the  fact  that  marriage  is  only  tolerated  among  them, 
is  on  suffrance  only  as  a  concession  to  human  weakness.  By 
common  convention  the  men,  he  says,  carried  off  the  girl  from 
her  parents  to  their  own  dwelling;  sometimes  the  girls  ran  away 
themselves  carrying  with  them  goods  belonging  to  their  parents. 
The  latter  as  a  rule  were  quite  prepared  for  this,  but  pretended 
to  know  nothing  about  it,  and  went  through  the  form  of 
making  out  that  it  was  done  against  their  will.  The  end  of  it 
all  was  that  the  parents  of  bride  and  bridegroom  met  and 
agreed  about  the  dowry,  and  then  went  to  their  respective 
homes.  Nowadays  the  matter  is  conducted  more  simply; 
the  marriage  festivities  are  openly  held,  to  the  exclusion  of 
course  of  religious  rites,  though  in  cases  there  is  a  blessing  of  the 
young  couple  by  the  ikons. 

Tolstoy  has  given  us  a  charming  picture  of  a  peasant  wedding 
which  no  doubt  is  identical  in  outline  with  these;  and  it  is 
recognized  that  the  old  institution  of  marriage  by  capture  has 
left  numerous  survivals  on  Russian  soil.  The  ceremonies, 
therefore,  ascribed  by  Ivanovski  to  the  Thedosievski  sect  are 
not  peculiar  to  it,  but  are  racy  of  the  soil. 

The  Present  Situation 

The  Bezpopovtsy  have  thus  arrived  at  a  double  solution  of 
the  marriage  problem.  One  sect  frankly  recognizes  it  and  have 
tried  to  estabUsh  a  new  reUgious  basis  for  it.  The  other  only 
tolerates  it  as  a  sin  to  be  expiated  by  penance;  and  has  split  up 
into  fresh  sects  as  marriage  is  tolerated  more  or  less.  A 
Thedosievski  council  was  held  in  1883  in  Moscow  in  order  to 
re-establish  the  stricter  ideal  of  non-marriage,  but  it  only 
roused  fresh  internal  dissensions  and  divisions  of  which  the 
Bratskii  Slovo  for  the  years  1883-5  gives  details.  The  straiter 
sect  does  not  baptize  the  children  or  only  does  so  when  they  are 
found  exposed,  in  which  case  they  are  called  God's  gifts,  it 
being  unknown  who  exposed  them.  This  sect  is  probably  not 
very  numerous,  and  the  majority  of  its  adherents,  as  has  been 
noticed  in  the  sees  of  Vyatka  and  Kazan,  recognize  marriage 
outright  as  thoroughly  legitimate. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  207 

Uzov  relates  that  in  his  day,  that  is  about  the  year  1880,  a 
former  monk  of  the  Pomor  'married'  group,  named  Barnabas, 
summed  up  the  'subtilties'  of  the  'marriageless'  sect  as  follows: 
"There  is  no  longer  any  sacrament  of  marriage,  but  all  agree 
upon  free  life  in  union  with  each  other,  and  by  this  expedient 
the  world  is  being  filled  up  with  people."  ^ 

Among  the  dissidents  of  the  Phihppovski  and  Thedosievski 
groups,  although  marriage  does  not  exist,  married  Ufe  goes  on 
all  the  same.^  The  tendency  of  the  '  marriageless '  is  brought 
out  in  reUef  in  the  teaching  that  there  must  be  no  monkery, 
but  that  everyone  must  hve  a  family  hfe.  Naturally  this  doc- 
trine, like  the  rival  one,  tries  to  find  its  justification  in  holy 
writ;  and  accordingly  the  monk  Barnabas  taught  that,  as  in 
their  philosophy  'no  priest'  involved  'no  marriage,'  so  also  it 
involved  'no  monkery' j^  for  without  a  clergy  you  cannot 
receive  the  monkish  habit.  On  this  principle  two  monks, 
Joasaph  and  loanikii  gave  up  the  monkish  habit,  and  the 
former  took  to  himself  a  cook,  the  latter  returned  to  his  former 
wife,  or,  to  use  the  '  marriageless '  terminology,  his  cook.^ 

An  account  of  the  actual  practice  of  the  sect  furnished  by  the 
Orthodox  Review  for  1865  (No.  3,  art.  by  Veskinski)  bears  out 
Uzov's  conclusions:  "The  Thedosievski  of  the  districts  of 
Liontsin,  Rezhits,  Drys  and  Dinamin  in  their  doctrine  of  mar- 
riage approach  most  nearly  to  the  regulations  of  their  founder; 
and  though  they  practise  cohabitation,  yet  only  admit  it  as 
a  necessity,  and  perform  no  ceremonies  in  connection  with  it; 
but  among  the  Thedosievski  of  the  Polotsk,  Vitebsk  and 
Lepelsk  districts,  before  a  man  and  woman  can  begin  their 
cohabitation,  certain  rites  are  observed,  such  as  benediction  by 
the  Elders  or  rehgious  leaders  at  a  gathering  of  the  parents  of 
the  girl  and  bridegroom,  special  prayers  being  recited  and  so 
forth,  all  which  imparts  to  it  outwardly  the  aspect  of  a  sacra- 
ment." ^ 

The  above  account  apparently  refers  also  to  the  'married' 

^  Chronicle  of  Raskol  Events  by  I.  Subbotin,  p.  49. 

2  Istina,  1874,  Bk.  XXXII  Sketches  of  Old  rit.  Life,  p.  37. 

3  Istina,  1872,  Bk.  XXI,  Voyage  of  Monk  Barnabas  p.  60. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  106. 

6  Orthodox  Review,  1865,  No.  3,  art.  by  Veskinski,  p,  280. 


208  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

sect  of  the  Vitebsk!  Government.  How  then  in  the  matter  of 
family  organization  do  the  two  halves  of  the  Bezpopovtsy  differ 
from  each  other?  Uzov  repUes  that  the  'married'  sect  impart 
to  their  marriages  the  significance  of  a  sacrament  in  order  to 
procm-e  divine  sanction  and  intervention  for  the  union;  the 
rival  sect  mider  stress  of  a  counter  tendency  accompUsh  the 
union  in  a  purely  secular  fashion :  a  man  first  betrothes  himself 
to  some  woman  or  girl  and  receives  her  consent,  he  then  goes  for 
her  to  a  place  agreed  upon  and,  after  making  a  pretence  of 
ravishing  her  away,  takes  her  to  his  own  home,  and  their 
cohabitation  lasts  until  or  imless  family  jars  put  an  end  to  it. 
To  give  the  transaction  due  pubhcity  the  parties  who  have  thus 
taken  to  cohabitation  visit  the  bazaars  and  other  places  of 
popular  resort  again  and  again,  hand  in  hand  or  with  a  single 
cloak  cast  over  both  of  them,  by  way  of  manifesting  to  all  the 
fact  that  they  now  live  together.^  Such  idylUc  simphcity 
reminds  one  of  a  Scotch  marriage  in  the  presence  of  four  wit- 
nesses, to  which  it  would  impart  a  picturesque  touch  of  High- 
land romance  if  a  semblance  of  marriage  by  capture  were 
added  as  in  Russia. 

The  '  marriageless '  sectary  of  the  Varnavinski  province  of  the 
Kostroma  Government,  when  the  time  comes  for  him  to  form  a 
household,  merely  takes  home  a  girl  of  another  family  with  the 
consent  of  her  parents  and  lives  with  her  as  his  wife.^  The 
conditions  of  town  Ufe,  especially  for  the  labouring  classes, 
impose  a  somewhat  different  type  of  family  Hfe  than  is  possible 
in  country  villages  and  lead  to  greater  frequency  of  divorce.^ 
The  poorer  parents  in  the  cities  are  working  in  manufactories 
and  mills,  and  have  not  the  same  economic  facihties  for  them- 
selves bringing  up  their  famiUes  as  they  would  have  if  they 
hved  in  villages.     In  the  country  the  child  can  help  a  httle 

*  Orthodox  Review,  1865,  No.  3,  art.  by  Veskinski,  pp.  288-9. 

2  Kelsiev  Sbarnik,  IV,  300. 

'  Nicolas  Popov  thus  describes  the  mode  of  divorce  of  a  couple  who  had  lived 
together  only  a  few  months :  "  Pelagia  Michailovna  collected  all  her  dowry  chattels 
together  and  then  bowed  low  thrice,  according  to  their  custom,  at  her  husband's 
feet,  laid  her  hansel  before  the  ikons  and  after  that  bade  farewell  to  her  mother- 
in-law  and  to  the  witnesses  present."  (From  Materials  for  a  history  of  the  Bezpo- 
povtsy congregation  in  Moscow,  p.  152.) 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  209 

with  the  animals  and  in  the  fields,  whereas  in  the  city  it  is 
merely  in  the  way  and  the  parents  are  not  at  home  to  look  after 
it.  In  towns  this  problem  was  met  even  before  1880  by  the 
parents  handing  their  children  over  to  asylmns  or  creches  built 
by  the  Thedosievski  sect  in  Moscow  and  Riga. 

In  doing  so  they  had  not,  as  too  often  supposed,  any  idea  or 
intention  of  cutting  themselves  off  from  their  offspring.  It  can 
be  proved  that  this  was  so  from  an  incident  which  occurred  in 
1830.  The  Government  had  decreed  that  the  children  in  these 
creches  should  be  registered  as  Cantonists,  i.e.  the  mostly 
Jewish  children  stolen  by  the  Russian  Government  to  be  turned 
into  soldiers  hke  the  janissaries.  Thereupon  a  crowd  of  work- 
people and  labourers,  having  discovered  that  the  children 
whom  women  of  the  'Cemetery'  (or  Raskol  Settlement  in 
Moscow)  and  others  had  born  to  them,  were  to  be  carried  off 
'for  torture,'  gathered  in  a  crowd  at  the  gate  of  the  Cemetery 
and  raised  an  uproar  crying  out:  "Here  is  an  inhuman  Tsar 
who  would  rob  our  children  from  the  very  arms  of  their 
mothers."  All  the  children  were  promptly  picked  out  and 
taken  away  by  their  parents,  and  even  such  as  had  lost  both 
parents  were  taken  charge  of  by  the  well-to-do  members  of  the 
sect  to  be  brought  up  in  their  homes,  rather  than  aUow  them 
to  be  taken  and  reared  in  a  battaUon  of  miUtary  cantonists.^ 

We  see  from  the  above  that  the  '  marriageless'  sectaries  in  the 
cities,  finding  themselves  constrained  to  adjust  their  fives  to 
conditions  of  mill  and  factory,  were  very  nearly  organizing  them 
on  a  better  basis  than  the  rest  of  the  population  that  worked  in 
the  same  institutions.  Whereas  the  'orthodox'  mother,  when 
she  went  off  for  the  entire  day  to  the  factory,  had  to  leave  her 
children  without  anyone  to  look  after  them,  the  sectaries 
handed  them  over  to  a  creche  in  which  they  could  rely  on  their 
welfare  and  education  being  attended  to  by  responsible  persons 
of  their  own  way  of  thinking.  Except  for  the  interference  of 
the  Government,  we  should  probably,  says  Uzov,  find  among 
them  a  regularly  organized  public  system  of  bringing  up  and 
educating  the  younger  generation.  Not  long  ago  there  was  a 
notice  in  the  Russian  Gazette  (Vedomosti)  of  secret  institutions 

*  Nilski  Family  Life  in  Rtissian  Raskol,  pp.  103,  133. 


210  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

or  refuges  in  Moscow  for  the  education  of  the  children  of  the 
'marriageless'  Pomorski  sect.  Any  government  worth  the 
name  would  have  welcomed  such  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  poor 
to  do  the  best  for  their  offspring,  but  that  was  not  the  way  of 
Tsardom. 

Marriage  Among  the  Stranniki 

We  have  related  in  some  detail  from  Ivanovski  the  rise  and 
development  of  the  wandering  sect  called  Beguny  or  Stranniki, 
more  uncompromising  in  the  hostility  to  the  present  order  of 
things  than  any  other  sect,  and  in  consequence  the  object  of 
malignant  persecution  by  the  Government.  The  vast  majority 
of  them,  says  Uzov,  live  a  family  life  and  'for  fear  of  the  Jews' 
as  they  call  the  Government,  are  even  'crowned,'  that  is,  mar- 
ried in  orthodox  churches,  though  they  attach  no  significance 
to  the  rite.  He  agrees  with  Ivanovski  in  saying  that  the 
majority  of  this  sect,  who  marry  and  have  families,  are  denomi- 
nated by  themselves  "people  of  the  world,  entertainers  of 
wanderers,  domiciled  Christians."  The  minority  make  it 
their  business  to  spread  their  ideas,  and  undertake  the  'apos- 
tolic labour'  of  roving  from  village  to  village. 

They  may  be  said  to  have  no  families,  but  all  the  same  they 
do  not  preach  asceticism  and  non-marriage  in  our  sense,  and 
even  essay  to  harmonize  their  vagabondage  with  the  satisfac- 
tion of  family  instincts  and  leanings.  In  theory,  as  sacramen- 
tal marriage  has  disappeared  along  with  the  priests  of  the 
ancient  order,  all  men  and  women  are  now  'virgins,'  monks  and 
nuns.  Thus  a  married  member  of  the  sect  has  explained  that, 
whereas  a  wife  is  the  gift  of  the  devil,  i.e.  of  the  priest  of  the 
church,  the  virgin  with  whom  he  lives  is  the  gift  of  God.  He 
who  hves  with  a  wife  lives  in  sin;  he  who  lives  with  one  that  is 
not  his  wife,  out  of  love,  conunits  no  sin.^  The  Stranniki  thus 
allow  irregular  cohabitation  instead  of  marriage,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  they  are  to  be  regarded  in  this  age  of  Antichrist  as 

'  Kelsiev,  Sb.  iv,  124,  from  evidence  given  by  women  brought  before  the 
Government  commission  of  1852.  The  Strannik  repaired  with  his  "virgin" 
before  an  ikon  in  his  forest  cell  and  there  recited  to  her  this  formula  of  the  matri- 
monial code. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  211 

the  only  people  that  are  just  and  righteous,  and  the  Apostle 
Paul  has  declared  that  the  law  is  not  laid  upon  the  justified.^ 
On  this  ground  the  Beguns  of  the  Desert  (which  means  not 
necessarily  a  forest  or  wilderness,  but  in  general  a  place  of 
hiding,  be  it  only  their  own  homes),  live,  each  brother  with  a 
sister  of  one  spirit  with  him  in  a  common  cell.^  The  Begun 
sire  allows  his  daughter  to  fall  in  love  with  whomever  she  Ukes 
and  as  long  as  she  pleases,  delighted  if  an  obedient  daughter 
remains  a  bride  of  Christ  and  adds  to  the  home  a  new  future 
worker,  male  or  female.^  ''Bear  children  once  a  week  if  you 
hke,  only  do  not  go  and  get  'crowned'  in  church,"  is  his  advice 
to  her. 

It  is  rare,  says  Shchapov  in  the  Vremya,  No.  11,  p.  293,  for 
the  teacher  to  go  unaccompanied  in  his  travels  by  his  mistress. 
So  Euthymius  wandered  about  with  Irene  Thedorovna,  who 
after  his  death  played  a  great  part  in  the  dissemination  of  his 
doctrine,  and  he  never  changed  her  for  another  all  his  life,  says 
S.  Maximov  in  an  article  in  the  National  Records  (Otetchest. 
Zap.)  for  1876,  No.  7.  Nicetas  Semenov  Kilesev  in  accordance 
with  Euthymius'  rule,  out  of  two  converted  sisters  that  were 
become  his  friends,  chose  the  one  that  was  a  virgin,  the  elder 
sister,  Barbara  Dmitrievna,  according  to  the  same  source  of 
information.  VasiU  Gorbunchik  wandered  in  company  with 
Maria  Vasilev,  his  mistress,  who  had  twice  saved  him  from  the 
hands  of  the  ministers  of  Antichrist,  in  other  words  from 
Government  officials. 

These  missionaries  understand  well  enough  that  children  bom 
of  their  unions  would  hamper  their  activities,  since  they  have 
to  be  brought  up;  and  in  order  to  bring  them  up  they  would 
have  to  abandon  their  'apostolic'  labours,  a  thing  which  the 
propagandist  zeal  of  the  sect  cannot  allow.  In  this,  and  no 
other  sense,  is  their  doctrine  a  denial  of  the  family;  and  the 
denial,  such  as  it  is,  was  never  due  to  ascetic  impulses,  but  to 
their  passionate  ardour  for  propaganda  which  forbids  them  to 
five  in  any  one  place  for  long.  Accordingly  they  either  leave 
the  children  they  have  begotten  in  the  family  of  their  mistresses 

*  Edifying  Readings,  1863,  pt.  3:  Athanasius  Petrov,  a  Stranniki  teacher,  p.  117. 
2  Kelsiev,  sb.  iv,  160,  from  the  same  class  of  evidence. 


212  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

or  hand  them  over  to  a  creche  or  asylum.  "According  to  a 
nmiour  gathered  on  the  spot  by  a  member  of  an  expedition  sent 
out  with  a  view  to  a  persecution  of  the  Raskol,  there  existed 
in  the  Yaroslav  Government  in  the  Poshekhonski  Sykhotski 
forest  an  inaccessible  underground  skete  where  the  virgins  of 
the  sect  repair  for  their  confinements."  The  existence  of  this 
skete  was  affirmed  in  1834  by  a  person  brought  up  in  it,  and 
according  to  Kelsiev  (Sbornik  iv,  75)  children  remained  in  it  up 
to  their  20th  year. 

Thus  it  is  not  uncommon,  remarks  Uzov,  for  family  instincts 
to  get  the  better  of  propagandist  zeal  with  members  who  have 
undertaken  'Apostolic'  work.  On  the  whole  however,  the 
tendency  is  for  those  who  eschew  marriage  to  deride  those  who 
do  not.  They  ask:  Why  bring  your  children  into  the  desert? 
How  are  you  going  to  hide  yourselves  with  a  pack  of  children? 
They  anyhow  do  not  repudiate  family  ties  in  the  name  of 
asceticism,  but  because  they  are  incompatible  with  their  voca- 
tion. One  might  say  the  same  of  the  Latin  discipline  of  ceU- 
bacy  for  parish  priests.  Yet,  he  continues,  all  the  facts 
adduced  tend  to  prove  that  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
'marriageless'  sects  Uve  a  family  life,  only  the  family  is  pre- 
carious and  easily  dissoluble  at  will  by  either  party.  There 
are  no  generally  recognized  rules  hmiting  the  facilities  of  dis- 
ruption; it  is  enough  for  the  parties  to  desire  to  terminate  a 
conjugal  relation  which  is  felt  to  be  onerous  to  both.  The 
minority  that  really  have  no  famihes  have  avoided  having 
them,  not  on  reUgious  grounds,  but  because  for  other  reasons 
they  cannot  tolerate  them. 

Many  observers  hold  that  so  loose  an  organization  of  family 
life  must  be  specially  hard  on  the  woman,  and  Nilski  ^  expresses 
his  wonder  that  it  has  been  preferred  not  only  by  the  Thedo- 
sievki,  including  those  of  Riga  (Rizhski),  but  also  by  the  women 
of  the  uniat  and  orthodox  persuasions.  Uzov  on  the  contrary 
urges  that  family  happiness  does  not  depend  on  the  external 
forces  upholding  the  family  union,  but  on  affection  and  mutual 
respect,  and  very  often  on  economic  necessity.  He  argues  that 
the  best  and  most  moral  section  of  the  population  is  averse  from 

1  Family  Life  in  the  Raskol,  by  Nilski,  p.  152. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  MARRIAGE  213 

applying  constraint  in  the  case  of  family  disagreement,  and  that 
such  constraint  only  benefits  crude,  egoistic  and  purely  animal 
natures.  He  points  out  that  such  hard  and  fast  union  does  not 
de  facto  exist  for  the  husband,  so  that  the  whole  burden  of  it 
falls  on  the  woman,  whom  we  cannot  expect  to  forego  a  right 
freely  conceded  to  the  man.  Where  unions  are  as  free,  as  they 
are  among  these  sects,  a  man  dares  not  beat  his  partner,  dares 
hardly  to  raise  his  hand,  for  fear  she  may  say  "I  know  my  way 
home,"  and  if  he  exclaims:  ''I  defy  you  to,"  she  answers: 
"I  never  married  you!"  ^ 

^  Conversations  of  an  orthodox  priest  with  old  ritualists,  T.  Tverdynski,  p.  334. 


^ 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ORGANIZATION,  LEGAL  POSITION,  AND  NUMBERS  OF  THE 

RASKOL 

The  merit  of  Uzov's  work  is  that  he  exhibits  so  clearly  the 
close  connection  between  the  Raskol  and  the  original  consti- 
tution and  development  of  Russian  peasant  society,  whereas 
Ivanovski  and  most  foreign  pubUcists  have  superficially  tried  to 
explain  its  rise  and  duration  from  purely  religious  and  theo- 
logical considerations.  Uzov  devotes  an  entire  chapter  to 
this  aspect  of  his  subject,  which  he  begins  by  remarking  that, 
as  the  corner-stone  of  the  edifice  of  Russian  society  has  always 
been  commimism,  it  was  but  natural  that  the  so-called  Old 
behevers,  as  representatives  and  champions  of  the  independent 
and  home  intelHgence  and  feehng  of  the  Russian  people,  should 
withal  exemplify  in  their  settlements  the  prevaihng  commun- 
istic instinct.  He  illustrates  this  contention  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  a  Raskol  Priestless  settlement  in  Prussia  described  in  the 
Istina  for  1871,  No.  18;  for  this  exhibited  the  sharp  contrast 
between  genuine  Russian  fife  and  the  institutions  of  Western 
Europe.  The  description  is  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  Raskol- 
niks,  who  using  the  familiar  jargon  of  the  sect,  calls  it  a  monas- 
tery, although  it  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  mundane 
collection  of  Russian  peasants  immersed  in  family  life. 

The  Prussians  inhabiting  the  locality,  he  says,  were  filled 
with  wonder  at  the  example  of  solidarity  and  cohesion  shewn 
by  the  immigrants  from  Russia.  They  held  all  the  pastureland 
in  common.  Notwithstanding  the  seeming  rudeness  of  their 
Russian  agricultural  implements  the  tilth  was  manured  and 
got  ready  with  extreme  rapidity.  All  operations  went  easily 
among  them  because  of  the  spirit  of  mutual  union  and  friend- 
ship which  bound  them  up  together.  The  Prussian  individual- 
ists of  the  neighbourhood  were  strangely  interested  in  this 
exhibition  of  the  Russian  instinct  of  mutual  goodwill  and  char- 
ity.   The  author  says  that  this  moral  coherence  was  imputed  by 

215 


216  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  Prussians  to  the  ignorance  of  the  settlers.  This  reminds 
one,  he  adds,  of  the  language  of  our  own  intelligentsia,  who,  Hke 
the  Prussians,  have  broken  society  up  into  loose  pawns  upon 
the  board,  and  Uke  them  impute  to  crass  ignorance  and  lack  of 
understanding  the  charity  which  is  engrained  in  the  Russian 
nature,  in  the  anima  naturaliter  Christiana  of  the  Slav  peasant. 
The  Raskol  was  recruited  from  the  most  energetic  and  intelli- 
gent section  of  the  people,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  so 
many  who  thirsted  for  a  spiritual  Ufe  had  no  other  alternative 
but  to  adopt  it.  All  other  avenues  to  a  better  life  were  closed 
juridically  or  de  facto.  The  result  was  that  the  Raskol  throve 
by  absorbing  into  itself  all  the  best  living  juices  of  the  Russian 
people,  and  the  results  are  visible  in  the  singular  capacity  it 
has  shewn  for  communism. 

The  Communes  of  the  Vyg 

Already  at  the  close  of  the  XVIIth  Centiiry  the  bond  of 
conmiunism  held  together  their  earhest  societies,  and  its  force 
was  exampled  in  the  society  formed  on  the  River  Vyg  in  the 
Olonets  Government.  This  consisted  of  an  entire  group  of 
communes,  cohering  among  themselves  as  well  as  with  the  rest 
of  the  other  Raskol  communes  scattered  all  over  Russia.  One 
of  the  teachers  who  helped  to  found  it  predicted  that  it  would 
disseminate  itself  and  be  celebrated  all  over  the  land,  and  be 
the  salvation  of  many  who  were  doing  the  will  of  God  and  walk- 
ing in  his  ways;  and  the  work  of  multiphcation  lay  in  the  future 
with  those  who  settled  down  along  with  their  matrons  and 
maidens,  their  cows  and  cradles.^ 

His  testimony,  says  Uzov,  proves  that  it  was  a  purely 
secular  foimdation,  Uke  the  other  Vygovtsy  settlements  which 
also  styled  themselves  sketes.  It  is  true  they  were  gathered 
roimd  an  Epiphany  convent,  of  which  the  inmates  followed  the 
ascetic  ideal;  but  both  before  and  after  this  convent  was 
foimded  in  their  midst,  the  inhabitants  of  the  sketes  around  it 
eschewed  the  monastic  ideal,  married  and  had  famiUes;  they 
only  depended  on  the  monks  for  conducting  their  reUgious 

^  Christian  Reading,  Nos.  7,  8,  art.  by  Barsov,  p.  52. 


THE  RASKOL  217 

ceremonies.  Such  is  the  testimony  of  the  same  Raskol  teacher 
Barsov  in  an  article  upon  vexed  questions  of  the  earliest  history 
of  the  Bezpopovtsy  in  the  same  journal  for  1876  (Nos.  11,  12, 
p.  708). 

The  founders  of  this  convent,  the  brothers  Andrew  and  Semen 
Denisov,  made  an  honest  attempt  to  enforce  in  it  monastic 
discipline,  but  failed,  so  that  the  former  of  them  was  constrained 
in  1719  to  admit  that,  although  the  rules  and  regulations  were 
still  those  of  a  monastery,  yet  the  brethren  were  vigorously 
pursuing  a  practical  and  purely  secular  ideal,  and  modelled 
themselves  on  the  economy  of  an  old  Novgorod  parish.  The 
principles  of  their  confraternity,  to  wit,  hfe  in  common  and 
regulation  of  their  affairs  by  monastic  chapter,  remained  in 
force  as  their  charter.  All  the  same  there  was  not  visible 
among  the  brethren,  so  he  complains,  any  distinction  between 
the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  life.^  And  Barsov  in  his  volume  on 
these  two  brothers  (pp.  84,  108)  writes  that  the  inmates  of  this 
Monastery  never  really  entered  it  by  way  of  freely  avowing 
their  need  to  isolate  themselves  for  the  practice  of  reUgion,  nor 
because  they  had  leanings  towards  the  monastic  hfe;  their 
motive  was  either  to  conceal  themselves  and  escape  persecution, 
or  because  they  were  fired  with  enthusiasm  (for  the  Raskol 
cause).  Furthermore,  he  says,  they  were  all  of  them  people 
accustomed  to  family  hfe,  to  rustic  pursuits  and  agriculture, 
and  of  a  grade  of  spiritual  development  that  did  not  much 
inchne  them  to  contemplation  or  monastic  Ufe.  Of  it  they 
had  no  idea,  nor  could  it  be  expected  of  them  that  they  would 
keep  vows  of  cehbacy.  Accordingly,  when,  one  day,  the 
father  or  prior  was  holding  a  conclave  of  the  brethren  who  had 
returned  from  their  labours  here  there  and  everywhere,  and 
asked  them  if  they  had  in  their  absence  and  during  their  travels 
kept  to  the  rule  of  Church  and  cell,  they  had  to  acknowledge 
that  whether  from  stress  of  laboiu*  or  weakness  of  the  flesh  or 
pure  neghgence  they  had  neglected  what  was  so  salutary  and 
inestimable. 

The  end  of  it  was,  as  Barsov  remarks,  that  the  rigour  and 

1  N.  Aristov,  Structure  oj  Raskolnik  Commune,  in  Library  of  Reading,  1863, 
No.  7,  p.  5. 


218  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

discipline  of  the  Denisov  brothers  was  not  appreciated.  Sev- 
eral of  the  monks  fled,  others  after  a  brief  stay  in  the  monastery- 
migrated  into  the  Sketes  in  which  they  enjoyed  much  more 
liberty;  occasionally  there  was  a  revolt  against  Andrew  and  his 
discipUne.  The  monastery  itself  was  organized  on  a  basis  of 
free  commmiistic  tendencies,  all  the  brethren  being  on  an 
equality,  and  each  member  enjoying  the  same  rights  as  every 
other.^  Thus,  although  Andrew  Denisov  was  superior  prior, 
his  views  in  matters  affecting  the  brethren  as  a  whole  were 
always  laid  before  the  rest.^  Even  rations  of  bread  could  not 
reach  the  monastery  without  all  the  members  being  notified 
of  it. 

In  the  commune  the  powers  and  capacities  of  each  member 
were  ascertained  by  overseers  who  conjointly  with  the  cenobites 
assigned  to  each  his  occupation.  In  this  manner  the  entire 
Vygovski  conomimity  was  organized  in  different  groups  of 
labourers  and  mechanics ;  to  each  group  or  guild  was  assigned 
quarters  of  its  own,  and  their  collective  affairs  were  transacted 
by  bailies  and  directors  annually  elected.  Special  officials  also 
supervised  the  education  of  the  children  and  looked  after  the 
teachers.  The  churchwardens  and  rehgious  fathers  were  at 
once  teachers  and  authorities  for  such  purposes,  and  were 
appointed  by  reason  of  their  gentleness  of  character  and  of  their 
gifts  of  insight  and  discretion  in  everything  to  do  with  children. 
The  divines  thus  chosen  were  for  the  most  part  of  middle  age, 
distinguished  for  their  disinterestedness  and  learning  and  for 
their  labours  in  behalf  of  the  conununity  and  for  their  tender 
care  of  infants  and  orphans.^ 

The  independence  of  the  individual,  his  aspirations  and  con- 
victions, were  scrupulously  respected,  and  each  thought  and 
taught  exactly  as  his  understanding  led  him  to  do.^  Rehgious 
tolerance  was  such  that  even  foreigners  of  the  Lutheran  faith 
were  admitted  into  the  community.  Thus  the  assistant  of  the 
chief  Raskol  teacher  Kapiton,  was  an  individual  named  Babila, 
by  birth,  according  to  Denisov,  a  German,  and  of  the  Lutheran 

1  Aristov,  p.  6. 

2  Barsov,  pp.  93,  106. 

'  Aristov,  pp.  7,  12,  13,  14,  11. 
*  op.  cit.  p.  28. 


THE  RASKOL  219 

faith.  He  had  taught  reading  and  writing  for  some  years  in  the 
Slav  Academy  at  Paris  and  was  well  trained  in  rhetoric,  logic, 
philosophy  and  theology.  He  also  knew  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew 
and  Slavonic. '^ 

Property  in  Vyg  was  of  two  kinds,  pubUc  and  private.  The 
former,  says  Uzov,  included  land,  buildings  and  everything 
indispensable  for  the  common  economy.  Private  property 
consisted  of  part  of  the  moveables  or  furniture  which  were 
known  as  goods  of  the  cell.  At  death  many  left  by  will  all 
their  'cell'  property  to  their  kinsfolk;  but  the  majority  be- 
queathed all  their  private  effects  to  the  public  chest;  others 
divided  it  between  the  community  and  their  relatives.^ 

The  other  sketes  which  formed  part  of  the  Vyg  system  and 
were  diffused  over  the  wild  forests  of  Pomor  looked  to  the 
Epiphany  Monastery  as  their  centre.  As  early  as  1703,  says 
Aristov,  there  were  not  a  few  sketes  and  separate  '  cells '  —  kills 
as  they  were  called  in  ancient  Ireland  —  in  Pomor;  all  the 
Raskolniks  were  hnked  with  one  another,  all  paid  their  visits  to 
the  Vygovski  conmiunity  and  took  part  in  its  councils.  In  this 
connection,  be  it  remarked,  it  was  not  merely  affairs  adminis- 
trative and  economical  that  had  to  be  settled  by  all  the  mem- 
bers; religious  concerns  and  problems  of  church  government 
were  equally  under  the  control  of  the  entire  community.  In 
cases  of  grave  crime  the  decision  equally  rested  with  a  council, 
which  could  condemn  the  offenders  to  banishment  from  the 
community.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  female  offenders  were  not 
subjected  to  corporal  punishment.  No  drunkenness  was 
allowed  in  the  sketes;  drunkards  and  beggars  were  cast  out 
without  any  ceremony. 

The  Communes  of  Sopelok 

Uzov  passes  from  the  consideration  of  the  Pomor  communi- 
ties as  they  were  already  organized  early  in  the  XVIIIth  Cen- 
tury to  the  group  or  'concord'  of  the  Stranniki  or  Beguny 
which,  as  we  saw  above,  pp.  156  ff.,  grew  up  towards  the  close  of 
the  same  century  under  the  impulse  of  that  remarkable  reh- 

1  Shchapov,  Russ.  Raskol,  p.  175-6. 

2  Aristov,  p.  18. 


220  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

gious  reader  Euthymius  or  Euphiroius,  as  the  Slavs  spell  it;  and 
he  has  much  to  say  about  them  which  supplements  Ivanov- 
ski's  account.  He  illustrates  from  Shchapov's  article  in  the 
Vremya  of  1862,  No.  11,  p.  279,  the  gradual  growth  of  the 
movement.  It  began  about  1770  in  the  village  of  Sopelok, 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  Volga  near  Yaroslav,  and  from  it 
radiated  in  ever  larger  circles  to  embrace  vast  tracts  of  Russia 
and  Siberia.  Wherever  it  extended,  asylums  or  hospices, 
resembling  the  rest-houses  or  /xovai  of  early  Christian  mis- 
sions and  equally  those  of  the  Jewish  Essenes,  and  the  Vanq 
of  Armenia,  were  established. 

These  far-flung  settlements  formed  a  confederation  of  which 
Sopelok  was  the  metropoUs,  keeping  them  all  in  touch  with  one 
another.  Each  provincial  or  local  '  hospice '  however  formed  a 
separate  flock,  was  an  autonomous  and  self-governing  unit 
with  its  own  directing  council  and  tribunal,  but  not  so  inde- 
pendent that,  when  necessary,  the  common  and  supreme  head- 
quarters council  and  tribunal  of  the  Beguni,  was  not  recognized 
to  he  at  Sopelok,  whither  members  repaired  even  from  Siberia. 
Uzov  states  that  in  his  day  (1880)  the  sect  found  more  difficulty 
in  gathering  together  a  representative  board  for  the  settlement 
of  unavoidable  questions.  Nevertheless  in  July  1864  as  many 
as  a  hundred  nastavniks  or  'rectors'  met  in  the  village  of  Vak- 
hrushevo,  of  the  Damshinski  volost  (circle  of  villages)  in  the 
province  of  Vologda.  This  council  was  convoked  to  decide 
about  the  'articles'  of  Nicetas  Semenov,  one  of  their  own 
elders  who  for  ten  years  from  1854  had  interested  the  police. 

Uzov  raises  the  question  whether  the  internal  structure  of 
this  sect  can  be  described  as  genuinely  communistic,  as  A.  I. 
Rozov^  asserts  the  founder  Euthymius  to  have  intended  it  to  be. 
He  denies  that  the  Beguny  themselves  so  interpret  their  found- 
er's projects;  they  only  refer  his  words  to  agrarian  property, 
to  fisheries,  salt  deposits  and  so  forth.  He  admits  indeed  that 
Stranniki  are  met  with  who  preach  commxmism,  and  in  favour 
of  it  appeal  to  certain  of  the  founder's  writings,  especially 
the  work  entitled  Tsvetnik  (flower-bed,  florilegium)  in  which 

>  See  the  three  articles  printed  in  the  Vestnik  Europy,  Nov.  and  Dec.  1872 
and  Jan.  1873. 


THE  RASKOL  221 

the  registration  of  people  and  their  separation  into  distinct 
classes,  the  partitioning  of  lands,  forests  and  waters,  are  stig- 
matized as  triumphs  of  Antichrist.  This  sort  of  confiscation 
and  unfair  division  was,  in  Euthymius's  opinion,  a  heathenish 
abuse,  possible  only  because  one  man  was  envious  of  another, 
and  because  mutual  hostihty  ended  in  the  apportioning  of  much 
to  one,  of  Httle  to  another,  of  nothing  at  all  to  the  residuum 
compelled  to  hew  wood  and  draw  water  for  the  wealthy.  The 
passage  is  quoted  by  Kelsiev  in  his  history  of  the  Government's 
inquisition  into  the  Raskol  (Sbornik  pravitelstvennykh  svedenii) 
vol.  4,  p.  260.  But  it  is  hardly  conclusive  as  to  the  founder's 
opinions. 

Anyhow,  soon  after  his  death,  which  befell  in  1792,  VasiU 
Petrov,  one  of  his  peasant  disciples,  took  to  teaching  that  no 
Strannik  has  the  right  to  own  property,  but  must  give  up  every- 
thing he  has  to  the  uses  of  the  community.^  And  in  the 
Poshekhonski  province  Ivan  Petrov,  and  in  the  so-called  Plyo- 
sovski  region,  which  comprised  three  provinces  of  the  Kostroma 
Government,  Antip  Yakovlev,  proclaimed  that  Euthymius's 
dictum  that  ''the  phrase  'mine-thine'  is  accursed  and  profane, 
for  God  created  everything  among  you  common";  refers  not 
only  to  landmarks,  but  to  all  property  alike.  On  this  ground, 
saysRozovin  the  Vestnik  Europy  (1873,  No.  1),  they  demand 
a  rigorous  communism  and  complete  renunciation  of  the 
rights  of  property. 

It  comes  to  this  then,  says  Uzov,  that  among  the  Old  beUevers 
the  extremists  of  the  different  groups  do  not  shrink  from  the 
same  impossible  abrogation  of  mine  and  thine,  as  the  extrem- 
ists among  the  "spiritual  christians,"  who  carry  the  principle 
of  communism  to  excess.  In  all  probabihty  the  intransigent 
communism  of  these  Beguny  teachers  met  with  no  better  success 
than  it  did  among  them;  it  is  to  be  regretted,  he  adds,  that  we 
have  so  Uttle  information  about  them,  and  how  contemporary 
Begunism  Uves  is,  it  may  be  said,  completely  unknown. 

1  Orthodox  Review,  1864,  No.  8,  Art.  by  Veskinsky,  p.  315. 


222  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

General  Organization 

Uzov  maintains,  however,  in  regard  to  the  Raskol  as  a  whole 
that  Formakovski's  statement  that  it  is  a  sort  of  federation  of 
pohtico-reUgious  societies  is  borne  out  by  facts;  not  only  was 
it  true  long  ago,  but  it  can  be  demonstrated  in  quite  recent 
times.  And  this  is  so,  although  the  various  groups  differ  widely 
in  social  ideals,  and  among  all  of  them  the  tendency  and  lean- 
ings to  independence  are  much  more  pronounced  than  in  the 
rest  of  the  population. 

It  is  quite  rare,  says  a  writer  Vitkovski  in  the  National 
Memorials  (1862,  No.  5,  p.  355),  for  the  members  of  the  Raskol 
to  prefer  a  complaint  in  the  course  of  their  mutual  disputes  to 
the  local  authorities  or  to  go  to  law  with  one  another.  Such  is 
the  unity  of  spirit,  such  the  feehng  of  fraternity  among  these 
intelHgent  people,  that  they  find  themselves  able  to  do  without 
invoking  any  outside  protection.  And  Uzov  illustrates  the 
point  from  the  case  of  one  of  the  Strannik  teachers,  Athanasius 
Petrov,  who  in  1850  was  detected  in  the  act  of  hoarding  a 
quantity  of  money  in  an  ikon.  The  next  day,  says  one  who  had 
belonged  to  the  sect,  a  council  was  held  at  which  Athanasius, 
as  a  lover  of  money,  was  deprived  of  his  title  of  teacher,  his 
emblems  of  apostolic  dignity  taken  from  him,  a  rough  garment 
assigned  him,  and  a  decision  come  to,  to  keep  him  under  strict 
supervision.  However  the  delinquent  made  good  his  escape 
and  very  soon  was  caught  in  a  second  misdemeanour,  for  he 
had  taken  to  wandering  about  pretending  he  was  a  proto- 
hiereus  with  a  mission  from  the  Vyg  desert  or  hermitage. 
Thereupon  sentence  was  pronounced  upon  him  by  'a  general 
court  of  the  Old  rituahsts.'  This  court  was  instituted  in  1850 
in  the  settlement  just  named  in  consequence  of  altercations  and 
assassinations  among  the  different  groups.  It  was  commis- 
sioned to  examine  and  deal  wdth  all  suits  which  arose  between 
them.  Three  representatives  were  chosen  from  each  group,  in 
all  27,  and  three  of  them  presided  over  it.^  Such  an  institution 
absolutely  confirms  Formakovski's  statement. 

But,  as  the  same  author  observes  in  the  National  Memorials 

1  Edifying  Readings,  1863,  pt.  3,  pp.  120-5. 


THE  RASKOL  223 

(1866,  Nov.  Dec,  p.  641),  of  all  the  factors  which  lend  to  the 
Raskolnik  federation  irrefragable  stabiUty  and  strength,  the 
capital  one  is  the  feeUng  of  brotherhood  among  its  members  and 
communities.  Nothing  else  can  explain  such  facts  as  the 
existence  in  Russia  of  an  Old  rituaUst  hierarchy,  whose  leaders 
the  poHce,  in  spite  of  all  their  researches,  have  never  been  able 
to  get  hold  of.  Thus,  to  give  an  example,  in  Moscow,  one  of 
the  lower  officials  was  enjoined  to  occupy  himself  exclusively 
with  the  task  of  collecting  information  about  bishop  Sophron- 
ius,  what  he  was  doing  and  what  had  become  of  him.  In  this 
task  he  displayed  a  rare  zeal.  Petersburg  was  full  of  'secret' 
or  '  very  secret '  items  of  information  about  him,  one  bit  of  news 
came  flying  after  another,  and  more  than  once  the  authorities 
entertained  the  consoling  hope  that  the  moment  was  approach- 
ing when  they  would  catch  him.  It  was  destined  never  to  be 
realized.  The  strength  of  the  Old  beUevers'  organization  may 
also  be  judged  of  from  the  following  incident:  Measm-es  had 
been  taken  to  arrest  a  foreign  emigrant,  one  of  the  Raskolniks, 
who  had  been  residing  a  long  time  in  Moscow;  but  before  the 
plan  could  be  carried  out,  the  Old  behevers  there  had  received 
exact  tidings  of  it,  and  had  got  in  their  ecclesiastical  council  a 
copy  even  of  the  confidential  circular  on  which  the  whole 
manoeuvre  was  based  and  which  was  intended  only  for  the 
eyes  of  the  very  highest  personages.^ 

The  Raskol  communities  hold  together  by  means  of  a  close 
and  constant  intercourse  among  themselves  and  have  their 
own  post  office.  In  their  communications  they  employ  a 
cipher  and  conventional  language.  They  usually  send  their 
letters  by  confidential  messengers  and  not  by  post.  On  how 
considerable  a  scale  this  correspondence  goes  on,  one  can 
judge  from  the  fact  that  in  the  inquisition  of  the  year  1852, 
the  dissenters  of  Moscow,  Grusia  (Georgia)  and  Siberia  were 
found  to  be  communicating  with  one  another.^  They  have 
their  own  post,  and  by  means  of  it  circulate  necessary  informa- 
tion all  over  the  provinces  in  the  course  of  a  few  days. 

The  Raskolnik  communities,  says  Bellyustin,  are  so  arranged 

1  "  Contemporary  Chronicles  ",  1867,  No.  23,  art.  by  N.  Subbotin. 

2  Kelsiev,  Vol.  IV,  p.  341. 


224  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

that  the  lowest  beggar  has  a  voice  in  them.  The  following,  for 
example,  is  a  description  of  the  rich  boot-making  village  of 
Kimry  in  the  Korchevski  province  of  Tver,  inhabited  by 
Popovtsy. 

"The  relations  of  employers  and  workmen  are  altogether 
peculiar  and  characteristic;  the  latter  form  unions  usually  of 
30  to  60  persons,  and  these  possess  so  much  moral  influence, 
that  they  not  only  hold  their  own  in  all  that  concerns  their 
religious  convictions  against  the  patron,  in  case  he  is  incUned 
to  oppose  them,  but  they  can  obUge  him  to  adopt  their  point  of 
view.  It  was  our  good  fortune  to  be  present  not  only  at  their 
deliberations,  but  at  a  discussion  of  the  'faith'  between  an 
employer  and  his  guild;  and  it  contrasted  strongly  with  the 
usual  relations  between  an  employer  and  his  workmen.  Una- 
bashed by  anything  or  anyone  the  humblest  worker,  if  he  be 
their  most  instructed  man,  corrects  the  patron's  arguments; 
let  a  question  be  put,  and  they  insist  on  an  answer  to  it.  They 
often  leave  the  employer  in  a  dilemma;  he  is  obUged  either  to 
capitulate  unconditionally  to  the  body  of  workmen  —  and  let 
us  not  forget  the  unbroken  soUdarity  that  prevails  among 
them  in  all  that  borders  on  religion  —  or  to  antagonize  them, 
and  that  means  to  antagonize  the  whole  society."  ^  Not  that 
we  must  even  among  the  Raskolniks  regard  the  relations  of 
labour  and  capital  too  optimistically,  says  Uzov.  For  however 
strong  the  organization  of  the  community,  the  capitalists 
manage  to  make  their  power  felt;  and  a  latent  antagonism 
is  revealed  by  the  fact  that  latterly  the  Old  believers  have  dis- 
covered that  the  number  of  the  Beast,  i.e.  the  title  of  Anti- 
christ, is  contained  in  the  word  Khozyain,  which  means 
employer.'^  If  the  latter  in  their  idea  becomes  a  tool  of  Anti- 
christ, that  is  of  evil,  then  we  can  no  longer  entertain  any  hope 
even  among  the  Raskolniks  of  friendly  relations  between  capi- 
tal and  labour.  The  ideal  of  a  Russian  revolutionary  is  to 
manage  a  workshop  or  a  manufactory  along  the  communists 
lines  of  the  mir  or  village  commune. 

The  ideal  of  hfe  common  to  them  all  is  expressed,  concludes 

1  Russki  Vestnik,  1865,  June,  p.  762. 

2  Istina,  1877,  bk.  51,  p.  29. 


THE  RASKOL  225 

Uzov,  in  their  so-called  Belovody  (white  waters).  Long  since 
they  have  had  aspirations  for  this  land,  that  to  many  seemed 
a  dream  and  fable.  "In  this  region,"  says  the  monk  Mark 
Topozerski,  "theft,  larceny  and  other  offences  against  the  law 
are  unknown."  Its  inhabitants  who  number  over  half  a 
million,  "pay  taxes  to  no  government  whatever."  ^  From  the 
information  communicated  by  Yadrintsev,  we  gather  that  the 
accounts  given  among  the  Raskolniks  of  Belovody  contain  much 
truth.  Among  the  Altai  mountains  is  a  spot  which  the  Rus- 
sian bureaucrat  has  only  lately  discovered;  there  in  very  truth 
flow  the  white  (mountain)  streams,  and  there  is  to  be  found  a 
Russian  settlement,  which  until  yesterday  knew  not  the  heavy 
hand  of  any  intrusive  authorities.  At  their  advent,  then,  and 
not  before,  the  myth  of  White  waters  was  revealed  to  have  been 
more  or  less  of  a  real  fact ;  but  they  had  not  been  there  long 
before,  alas,  the  myth  became  a  real  myth. 


Legal  Position  of  the  Raskol 

Ivanovski  in  a  chapter  entitled  'External  Relations  of  the 
Raskol  to  the  Government  and  the  Measures  undertaken  by  the 
Clergy  in  order  to  achieve  its  enfeeblement,'  summarizes  what 
has  been  in  the  main  250  years  of  dreary  reUgious  persecution, 
broken  only  occasionally  by  brief  lucid  intervals  of  semi- 
toleration.  He  justly  divides  these  250  years  into  four  periods, 
viz: 

1.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Raskol  to  the  reign  of  Peter  I, 
that  is  approximately  to  the  beginning  of  the  XVIIIth  Century. 

2.  The  Reigns  of  Peter  I  and  his  successor  to  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  Catharine  II. 

3.  The  Reigns  of  Catharine  II  and  Alexander  I. 

4.  From  death  of  Alexander  I  until  the  end  of  the  XlXth 
Century. 

To  these  fom*  epochs,  let  us  hope  that  the  present  Revolution 
may  add  an  altogether  new  and  happier  one. 

1  P.  Melnikov,  Hist.  Sketch  of  Popovtsy,  pp.  41,  43. 


226  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Before  Peter  I 

No  ukases  were  hurled  directly  against  the  Old  behevers 
until  Tsar  Alexis  Mikhailovich  issued  one,  which  the  patriarch 
Joseph  countersigned,  as  well  as  his  MetropoUtans  and  arch- 
bishops, bishops  and  the  entire  holy  synod;  this  condemned  to 
the  stake  any  and  all  who  should  insult  Jesus  Christ,  the  Virgin 
or  the  Cross.  Under  this  law  provision  was  duly  made  for 
hmiting  down  and  burning  aUve  such  as  confronted  the 
inquisitor  with  firmness  and  courage,  while  those  who  promptly 
made  their  peace  with  the  church  were  only  to  be  subjected  to 
what  was  understood  in  that  age  as  spiritual  admonition,  no 
doubt  of  the  kind  that  Claverhouse  administered  about  the 
same  time  to  Scotch  covenanters. 

The  above  ukase,  however,  was  too  indefinite  and  too  gentle 
for  the  Empress  Regent  Sophia,  who  as  soon  as  she  had  dis- 
armed her  rebellious  praetorian  guard,  the  Streltsy,  issued  a 
new  one  proscribing  the  very  existence  of  the  Raskol,  and  mak- 
ing it  illegal;  the  teachers  of  the  Raskol  were  condemned  to  be 
burned  alive  as  heretics,  as  were  all  whom  they  had  rebaptized. 
The  repentant,  who  saw  the  error  of  their  ways,  were  to  be 
sent  to  convents  and  enlightened  by  appUcation  of  the  knout, 
as  also  were  any  who  sheltered  them,  unless  they  did  so  in 
ignorance,  in  which  case  they  were  to  be  heavily  fined. 

Peter  I 

The  above  law  continued  in  force  under  Peter  I,  called  the 
Great,  but  was  not  put  in  force  by  him  very  thoroughly, 
because  he  was  preoccupied  with  other  concerns.  He  was 
intent  on  opening  his  window  towards  Europe,  the  new  capital 
of  Petersburg,  as  he  called  it,  rechristened  by  the  late  Tsar 
Petrograd,  a  change  of  name  which,  though  it  pleases  the  Pan- 
slavists,  is  not  likely  to  be  permanent.  Peter  I  was  too  busy  at 
first  building  a  fleet  of  ships  and  developing  the  system  of 
bureaucratic  concentration  begun  a  hundred  years  before,  to 
turn  his  attention  to  the  persecution  of  heretics.  What  is 
more,  he  may  even  have  sympathized  a  httle  with  them,  for  he 


THE  RASKOL  227 

had  himself  to  bear  the  odium  of  abolishing  the  patriarchate 
and  installing  himself  in  its  place,  of  tearing  the  veils  off  the 
faces  of  high-bom  ladies,  of  cutting  off  the  curls  of  the  Jews 
and  the  beards  of  Russians.  Such  an  emperor  was  not,  at  any 
rate  at  first,  disposed  to  make  martyrs  of  people  who  were  to 
his  mind,  as  they  would  have  been  to  Frederick  the  Great's  or 
Voltaire's,  cranks  and  ignoramuses.  As  long  as  they  did  not 
hinder  his  pet  designs,  he  had  little  fault  to  find  with  them,  and 
was  ready  to  consider  them  as  good  citizens,  just  as  he  regarded 
the  many  Lutherans  who  put  their  wits  at  his  disposal.  The 
settlers  on  the  Vyg  even  earned  his  good  will  by  assisting  him 
in  his  enterprises;  so  did  those  of  Starodub,  and  he  rewarded 
both  for  a  time  by  allowing  them  liberty  to  worship  as  they 
liked. 

Later  on,  however,  Peter  discovered  their  fanaticism.  Most 
probably  their  orthodox  enemies  discovered  it  for  him.  Any- 
how in  1714  unfriendly  laws  were  made  against  them  of  a  kind 
to  facilitate  their  exploitation  by  the  Government.  As 
Sophia's  edict  stood  on  the  statute  book  with  its  menace  of 
rack  and  stake,  any  official  could  blackmail  them,  and  they  were 
naturally  ready  to  bear  any  burdens  of  taxation  or  corvee 
provided  only  they  were  allowed  to  retain  their  convictions. 

Peter  the  Great  therefore  began  by  obliging  them  to  inscribe 
themselves  as  Raskolniks  on  a  state-kept  register  and  to  pay 
double  taxes.  Now  they  regarded  themselves  as  the  Orthodox 
Church,  and  indeed  had  as  much  right  to  the  name  as  Nikon 
and  his  time-serving  prelates.  It  is  not  surprising  therefore 
that  many  refused  to  register  themselves  in  the  ledgers  of  Anti- 
christ, as  Ivanovski  explains,  ''partly  to  avoid  the  extra  imposts 
but  still  more  from  fanaticism."  The  result  was  that  Peter  I 
invented  ingenious  penalties  alike  for  those  heretics  who  con- 
cealed their  identity  and  for  those  who  revealed  it.  The 
avowed  dissenter  was  not  to  be  actively  molested,  but  to  be 
made  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  all,  monstrari  digito  praetere- 
untium.  To  that  end  they  were,  hke  our  convicts,  to  wear 
clothes  of  a  special  cut  marked  with  the  agreeable  lettering 
H.  R.  A.,  i.e.  Heretic,  Raskolnik,  Apostate.  They  were  to  be 
denied  any,  even  the  humblest,  of  public  offices.     Their  evi- 


228  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

dence  could  not  be  accepted  in  a  court  of  justice  except  as 
against  members  of  their  own  sect.  The  only  function  of  a 
public  kind  left  to  them  was  that  of  collecting  the  double  tax 
of  their  fellows  in  misfortune.  This  last  improvement  in  their 
position  was  sanctioned  July  7,  1725.  Already,  however,  in 
May  1722  a  fresh  edict  had  been  issued  against  their  teachers 
and  against  any  who  sheltered  the  latter;  and  on  July  13  of 
the  same  year  another  forbade  runaway  priests,  as  well  as 
Bezpopovtsy  elders,  to  hold  any  sort  of  religious  services  any- 
where. The  children  of  dissenters  were  to  be  baptized  by 
orthodox  priests,  while  the  settlers  on  the  Vyg,  who  still  enjoyed 
certain  immunities  because  of  the  services  they  had  loyally 
rendered  to  Peter  I,  were  in  1724  forbidden  to  quit  their  resi- 
dences without  passports. 

The  reason  for  all  these  restrictions,  alien  to  Peter's  original 
conceptions  of  his  duties  as  a  ruler,  is  to  be  sought  in  the  hos- 
tility of  the  holy  synod,  which  waxed  ever  more  intense  as  the 
propaganda  of  the  Raskol  spread.  They  had  hoped  to  extir- 
pate it  by  the  Draconian  law  of  Sophia.  They  now  demanded 
of  the  Government  fresh  powers  to  hunt  down  and  capture  the 
malignants. 

All  the  above  regulations  appUed  primarily  to  the  avowed 
dissenters.  The  task  of  discovering  the  unavowed  ones  was 
now  entrusted  to  the  clergy ;  the  maxim  '  set  a  thief  to  catch  a 
thief,'  seeming  no  doubt  to  Peter  thoroughly  applicable.  But 
here  the  Government  met  with  difficulty.  Very  many  of  the 
clergy  were  secretly  in  sympathy  with  the  Raskol,  as  is  shewn 
by  the  constant  leakage  from  their  ranks  into  those  of  the 
adversary.  Many  more,  as  underpaid  men  with  families  to 
support,  were  open  to  bribes.  It  was  held  necessary  therefore 
by  the  Synod  to  frame  edicts  against  its  own  clergy  in  case  they 
sheltered  or  connived  at  Dissent.  Those  who  did  so  were  liable 
to  forfeit  their  orders,  to  undergo  corporal  punishment,  forced 
labour,  etc.  Civil  and  military  officials  were  in  turn  appointed 
to  hunt  out  the  orthodox  clergy  who  were  lax  in  their  duty  — 
Quis  custodiet  ipsos  custodes?  —  and  to  assist  them  in  discharg- 
ing the  same,  in  case  they  were  loyal  to  their  bishops.  Even 
the  landowners  were  found  to  be  infected  with  the  Raskol 


THE  RASKOL  229 

poison,  and  were  made  liable  to  capture,  and  to  'admonition', 
as  it  was  tenderly  called,  by  the  spiritual  authorities;  and  if 
that  failed  of  effect  to  punishment  and  exile.  The  punish- 
ment —  according  to  the  old  trick  of  the  Roman  inquisition  — 
was  nominally  levelled,  not  against  reUgious  opinion,  but  at 
those  who  opposed  the  civil  Government,  in  this  case  the  Ukases 
of  the  Tsar.  Secret  police  were  sent  to  Starodub,  Novgorod, 
Nizhigorod,  Livonia  and  elsewhere,  to  keep  watch  not  only  on 
the  quasi-orthodox  clergy,  but  upon  the  landed  proprietors  as 
weU.  Such  was  the  legislation  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  it 
furnished  a  model  which  succeeding  Governments  as  a  rule 
followed  only  too  faithfully. 

We  have  seen  that  for  a  time  the  settlers  on  the  Vyg  enjoyed 
exemption  from  the  double  tax  along  with  a  few  other  privi- 
leges; but  not  for  long,  since  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  next 
ruler,  Catharine  I,  was  to  impose  it  on  them  in  June  1726.  The 
new  Government  even  entertained  the  plan  of  extirpating  that 
community  and  removing  its  members  to  their  original  homes 
by  force.  It  was  eventually  decided  however  in  1732  to  pass  a 
law  or  ukase  condemning  all  members  of  the  Raskol  to  be 
interned  in  monasteries,  there  to  undergo  clerical  'correction.' 
They  were  by  the  same  ukase  to  be  taken  regularly  to  divine 
service  and  in  case  of  resistance  to  be  handed  over  to  the  civil 
authorities  and  secular  arm.  In  1734  they  were  forbidden  to 
erect  chapels  or  oratories  for  themselves,  and  finally  in  1734 
under  Anna  Ivanovna  took  place  the  first  great  hunt.  The 
Cossacks  in  the  course  of  a  campaign  in  Poland  descended  upon 
the  settlement  of  Vetka  which  had  till  now  been  out  of  range 
of  the  Russian  Government,  and  40,000  of  them  were  driven 
back  across  the  frontier  into  the  grip  of  the  Moscovite. 

Peter  III  to  Alexander  I 

3.  We  now  approach  the  second  half  of  the  XVIIIth  Cen- 
tury, an  era  of  greater  freedom  lasting  from  the  accession  of 
Peter  III  in  1750  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Alexander  I  in  1825, 
seventy-five  years  in  all.  The  former  monarch  tried  to  assimi- 
late the  status  of  the  dissenters  to  that  of  cults  recognized  in 


230  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  empire  as  legitimate  though  not  orthodox.     He  did  not  live 
to  carry  out  his  plan,  and  it  devolved  on  Catharine  II  to  execute 
so  sensible  and  humane  a  project.     She  began  by  issuing  an 
edict  inviting  members  of  the  Raskol  who  had  fled  across  the 
borders  in  the  previous  reigns  to  return  to  Russia,  where  such 
orderly  and  industrious  people  could  ill  be  spared;  she  promised 
them  in  return  an  indemnity  for  any  wrongs  they  might  have 
committed,  and  instead  of  being  shorn,  as  together  with  the 
Jews,  they  had  been  by  Peter  the  Great,  the  right  was  conceded 
to  them  of  wearing  their  beards,  to  the  disgust  of  the  many 
German  barbers  whom  Peter's  legislation  had  furnished  with 
remunerative  jobs.     Catharine  also  engaged  to  spare  them  the 
indignity  of  wearing  a  distinctive  dress  not  unUke  that  assigned 
by  Latin  Inquisitors  to  the  victims  of  an  auto-da-fe.     Over  and 
above  these  indulgences,  the  returned  Raskolniks  were  allowed 
to  become  proprietors  of  land,  'royal  peasants,'  or,  if  they  pre- 
ferred it,  tradesmen  and  merchants.     They  were  however  con- 
demned to  continue  to  pay  to  the  Government  double  taxes  for 
a  period  of  six  years.     There  still  remained  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  settlers  at  Vetka  in  Poland,  and,  as  she  was  conducting 
one  of  the  perpetual  campaigns  against  the  Poles,  Catharine 
seized  the  occasion  to  transport  thence  to  their  old  homes 
another  20,000  of  them.     This  second  enforced  migration  gave 
the  cowp  de  grace  to  this  once  flourishing  colony  of  Old  believers. 
The  date  of  the  granting  of  these  exemptions  was  1764.     At  the 
same  time  Raskolniks  who  remained  confined  in  monasteries 
were  liberated.     Five  years  later  they  were  admitted  to  the 
witness  box  in  legal  cases;  in  1782  the  double  tax  was  aboUshed. 
Hitherto  this  had  been  levied  on  avowed  Raskolniks,  and 
pressure  had  been  used  to  force  them  to  inscribe  their  names 
in  the  official  registers,  in  consequence  of  which  and  from  abhor- 
rence of  the  name  Raskol  —  for  they  considered  themselves 
to  be  the  Orthodox  Church  —  they  had  concealed  their  qual- 
ity.    There  was  no  longer  the  same  reason  to  do  so  and  some 
began  even  to  see  an  advantage  in  being  put  on  the  register, 
for  once  they  were  inscribed  upon  it  they  were  exempt  from 
the  exactions  which  the  authorized  clergy  were  authorized  to 
levy  upon  their  flocks.     Not  a  few  even  of  the   orthodox 


THE  RASKOL  231 

inscribed  themselves  upon  the  register  in  order  to  escape  these. 
The  Government  thus  found  itself  in  a  dilemma;  certain  of  the 
provincial  governors  moreover,  e.g., those  of  Perm  and  Tobolsk, 
represented  that  the  retention  of  the  double  category  of  Raskol 
and  Orthodox  confused  the  census  and  taxation  lists  and  made 
the  collecting  of  accurate  statistics  more  difficult  than  need  be. 
The  end  of  it  was  that  the  Tsarina  expugned  the  very  name 
Raskol  from  all  juridical  and  official  documents.  The  Senate 
approved  of  this  step,  and  by  an  ukase  of  1783  the  name  was 
discarded  in  ecclesiastical  lists  and  records  as  also  in  verbal 
communications.  The  next  year,  1784,  the  holy  Synod  was 
induced  to  assent  to  this  reform,  and  in  1785  the  dissenters 
had  all  their  disabilities  removed  by  a  fresh  ukase  which 
admitted  them  to  public  positions  in  all  towns  and  cities. 
The  most  enlightened  of  all  female  sovereigns  in  Russia  and 
perhaps  the  whole  world,  had  won,  and  all  the  oppressive  regu- 
lations of  Peter  I  were  abrogated.  At  the  same  time  permis- 
sion was  given  to  the  members  of  the  Raskol  to  settle  in  Siberia. 
After  Catharine's  death  succeeded  the  brief  reign  of  Paul 
(Nov.  1796  to  March  1801),  and  then  Alexander  came  to  the 
throne,  a  man  of  liberal  and  humane  instincts.  His  policy 
towards  the  Raskol  however  was  a  perpetual  seesaw,  according 
as  his  native  disposition  or  the  sleepless  hatred  of  the  orthodox 
prelates  prevailed.  Even  under  Catharine  the  law  against 
orthodox  popes  who  joined  the  Raskol  was  maintained  in  all 
its  severity,  and  ukases  of  November  1765  and  January  1776 
condemned  them  to  ecclesiastical  degradation  and  deprivation 
of  their  orders,  and  it  was  not  safe  for  them  to  appear  in  pubUc 
in  their  true  colours.  At  the  beginning  of  Alexander's  reign, 
although  the  laws  were  not  changed,  the  Government  shewed 
itself  more  indulgent;  and  in  many  places,  e.g.  Gorodets  in 
the  Nizhegorod  Government  and  at  Starodub,  they  were  in 
1803  openly  discharging  their  spiritual  offices.  Nine  years 
later  however  the  Synod  interfered  to  prevent  the  Popovtsy  of 
the  village  of  Uvanov  in  the  Vladimirski  Government  from 
employing  them,  and  their  veto  was  upheld  by  Alexander  in 
February  1812.  Later  on,  in  March  1822,  the  Sovereign 
crowned  his  inconsistencies  by  sanctioning  the  use  of  runaway 


232  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

popes  in  case  they  had  been  guilty  of  no  crime  and  were  not 
quitting  the  church  in  order  to  evade  the  consequences  of  their 
actions.  The  prelates  expostulated  against  such  mildness,  but 
this  time  in  vain. 

The  right  of  having  their  own  chapels  and  oratories  was  con- 
ceded or  denied  under  Alexander  to  the  Raskol  with  similar 
waverings.  Before  Catharine  II  had  finally  Ughtened  their 
yoke,  the  old  laws  forbidding  them  to  have  places  of  worship  of 
their  own  had  been  reaffirmed  in  ukases  of  July  1769  and  April 
1778.  Subsequently,  it  is  true,  the  Government  winked  at 
their  existence  and  the  law  was  not  carried  out.  In  one  case 
(1817)  the  cupola  of  a  church  would  be  pulled  down,  but  the 
rest  of  it  left  intact.  In  other  cases  the  raising  of  a  church 
was  allowed,  but  the  right  to  hold  services  in  it  denied.  It  was 
a  real  triumph,  however,  for  the  Raskol  in  Moscow  when  in  1809 
the  legality  of  their  Transfiguration  Cemetery  was  upheld, 
and  when  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  authorized  the  rebuild- 
ing of  chiu"ches  in  the  Vyatka  Government  and  in  the  district 
of  Sarapul.  The  Holy  Synod  of  course  fumed  at  the  least 
show  of  tolerance,  and  appealed  to  the  ukase  of  1803  which, 
while  disclaiming  any  desire  to  violate  men's  consciences,  for- 
bade any  open  exhibitions  of  apostasy;  and  in  1816  they  man- 
aged to  get  the  chapels  in  Fatezh  in  the  Government  of  Kursk 
destroyed,  especially  any  that  presumed  to  have  a  bell.  In 
1817  the  Tsar  issued  instructions  to  local  authorities  to  forbid 
the  erection  of  chapels.  In  1822  a  fresh  edict  allowed  old  struc- 
tiu*es  to  remain,  but  forbade  the  raising  of  new  ones. 

Under  Alexander's  regime  the  open  celebration  of  their  rites 
was  also  winked  at,  and  the  Raskol  were  freely  allowed  to  bap- 
tize and  to  bury  their  dead  until  1818,  in  some  cases  even  to 
ring  a  bell  to  summon  the  faithful  to  worship.  But  stronger 
measures  were  enforced  in  1820,  especially  against  Raskol  prop- 
aganda. Any  pubhc  manifestation  of  their  religion,  even  the 
conducting  of  a  burial  by  a  priest  attired  in  canonicals,  was 
forbidden  in  1824.  They  might  bury  their  dead,  but  without 
hymns  or  candles. 


THE  RASKOL  233 

Nicholas  I  and  his  Successors,  to  1903 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  accession  in  1825  of 
Nicholas  I,  a  bigot  and  martinet,  was  marked  by  a  return  to 
the  system  of  persecution.  Raskol  communities  were  placed 
afresh  outside  the  law,  their  members  denied  the  right  of  will 
and  testament,  no  churches  or  schools  were  allowed  to  be  put 
up,  no  hospitals  or  rest-houses.  The  title  of  Raskolnik  had 
been  expugned  from  official  documents:  it  was  now  revived, 
and  all  pubhc  offices  and  employments  were  closed  afresh  to 
them.  No  dissenter  might  engage  in  trade  or  become  a  mer- 
chant of  the  first  or  second  guilds  or  categories.  New  oratories, 
of  course,  or  chapels  were  disallowed,  and  it  was  forbidden  to 
repair  those  which  already  existed.  Most  of  their  charitable 
institutions  were  closed  or  pulled  down.  The  dissenters  were 
also  obHged  by  ukase  to  take  their  children  to  an  orthodox  priest 
for  baptism;  their  marriages  were  declared  invalid.  The 
object  of  such  legislation  was  to  allow  members  of  the  sect  to 
hve  on  as  such  till  death  overtook  them,  but  prevent  their  ranks 
from  being  recruited  either  by  inheritance  or  by  propaganda. 
To  facilitate  the  project  Nicholas  had  a  hst  made  of  the  names 
of  all  living  Raskolniks,  with  an  inventory  of  all  their  churches, 
monasteries  and  sketes  so  called,  between  the  years  1840  and 
1853.  Everywhere  the  police  were  set  on  to  see  that  all  these 
oppressive  regulations  were  carried  out,  and  garrisons  were 
located  in  the  chief  Raskol  centres.  In  1847  a  special  poUce 
was  created  to  exact  the  extra  taxes  levied  upon  dissenters. 

Any  system  which  reposes  on  policemen,  especially  in  Russia, 
is  insecure,  for  they  are  generally  no  less  venal  than  unobserv- 
ant. In  spite  of  Nicholas'  campaign  therefore  the  Raskolniks 
went  on  building  their  chapels  and  increasing  their  numbers. 
When  an  extraordinary  inquisition  was  to  be  made  in  any 
centre,  the  people  were  always  forewarned.  Now  and  again, 
as  at  Semenov,  sketes  were  destroyed,  but  the  inmates  were 
regarded  as  martyrs  and  the  hatred  of  the  Orthodox  oppressors 
waxed  more  intense.  The  exiled  and  transported  managed  to 
correspond  with  their  coreligionists  and  inflame  what  Ivan- 
ovski  calls  their  fanaticism.     The  mockery  to  which  church 


234  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

consistories  condemned  them  served,  he  says,  to  harden  their 
hearts,  and,  if  they  repented,  it  was  only  in  semblance. 

In  1855  Nicholas  I  was  succeeded  by  Alexander  II  Niko- 
laevich,  a  man  of  more  liberal  tendencies.  The  question 
of  the  best  way  to  deal  with  the  Raskol  was  laid  before  him  in 
1858,  and  he  was  at  first  in  favour  of  applying  the  law  as  it 
stood,  but  impartially  and  equally  all  around;  for  a  member  of 
the  Raskol  never  knew  beforehand  how  a  court  of  first  instance 
would  decide  his  case,  and  was  the  victim  of  all  sorts  of  caprice 
on  the  part  of  poUce  and  judge.  Later  in  the  same  year, 
Alexander  decided  against  persecution,  but  agreed  to  forbid 
any  propaganda  amongst  the  Orthodox  and  any  pubUc  mani- 
festations of  Raskol  faith,  such  as  processions  with  cross  and 
banners,  hymn  singing  outside  a  place  of  worship,  solemn  cele- 
brations of  baptism  or  marriage,  funeral  processions  in  which 
the  clergy  wore  vestments  and  cowls,  monastic  habits,  outward 
emblems  of  religion  on  churches,  bells,  etc.  On  the  other  hand 
Raskolniks  were  permitted  to  trade  in  November,  1863,  and  to 
earn  medals  and  orders  from  the  Government  in  1864,  unless 
indeed  they  belonged  to  the  most  noxious  sects  which  eschewed 
marriage  and  prayers  for  the  Tsar;  they  were  allowed  in  1861 
with  the  consent  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  to  be  admitted 
to  public  offices.  In  1874  their  marriages  were  legitimized, 
if  duly  registered  in  the  records  of  the  poUce  and  commune, 
and  their  licit  character  was  made  to  depend  not  on  the  use  of 
religious  rites,  but  on  the  act  of  registration.  The  law  obliging 
them  to  go  through  the  mockery  of  baptizing  their  children  in 
an  orthodox  chiu-ch  was  now  abrogated. 

As  early  as  1864  the  Tsar  Alexander  projected  a  revision  of  all 
the  laws  affecting  the  Raskol,  and  in  1867  charged  his  coun- 
cil to  undertake  new  legislation.  Committees  of  investigation 
were  formed  in  consequence  and  men  of  special  knowledge, 
hke  Melnikov,  consulted.  A  new  scheme  of  law  was  pre- 
pared and  laid  before  the  Holy  Synod;  but  the  political  events 
of  1877,  the  war  with  Turkey,  and  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar 
in  1881  arrested  the  whole  scheme,  which  was  not  resumed  until 
1883,  when  by  Ukase  of  May  3  the  new  Tsar  Alexander  III 
gave  sanction  to  the  views  of  his  council  in  favour  of  recogniz- 


THE  RASKOL  235 

ing  the  civil  rights  of  Dissenters  and  their  liberty  of  worship. 
But  the  proscription  of  any  outward  signs  or  evidence  of  Raskol 
faith  was  kept  up,  and  every  measure  taken  to  prevent  propa- 
ganda and  protect  the  Orthodox  Church  from  being  attacked. 
The  general  principle  of  religious  Uberty  and  toleration  was 
admitted  and  even  paraded  in  the  new  law,  but  in  application 
sadly  curtailed.  The  Orthodox  Church  was  recognized  as 
having  a  monopoly  of  religious  truth  and  Government  protec- 
tion. No  other  reUgious  body  could  make  converts  from  other 
faiths,  while  no  Orthodox  person  could  leave  the  Church  and 
enroll  himself  in  the  ranks  of  the  Raskol.  The  statute  forbid- 
ding any  public  manifestation  of  Raskol  faith  and  opinion  was 
to  be  vigorously  enforced,  and  exile  awaited  any  member  of  it 
who  converted  an  Orthodox  to  his  faith.  Any  who  printed 
books  with  a  view  to  Raskol  propaganda,  or  gave  lectures  or 
distributed  tracts  for  the  purpose  were  liable  to  be  imprisoned. 
Any  who  overtly  spoke  ill  of  the  Orthodox  clergy  or  vilified  the 
Church  were  Hable  to  the  same  penalty.  The  printing  of  the 
hturgical  books  of  the  Raskol  v/as  likewise  forbidden,  and  any 
one  selhng  them  might  be  fined  300  rubles.  No  new  churches, 
nor  restoration  of  old  ones,  was  to  be  attempted  without  the 
fiat  of  the  provincial  governor,  and  all  Government  officials 
and  bureaucrats  were  pledged  to  assist  the  Orthodox  bishops 
and  clergy  in  the  sacred  duty  of  repressing  the  Raskol.  The 
inferior  clergy  had  to  keep  the  bishop  informed  of  any  con- 
siderable defection  on  the  part  of  the  parishioners,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  principle  that  "the  dominant  Church,  Orthodox, 
CathoHc  and  Oriental,  is  invested  with  the  right,  as  is  no  other, 
within  the  frontiers  of  the  Empire  to  induce  the  heterodox  by 
way  of  persuasion  to  embrace  its  doctrine."  ^  The  Government 
rewards  those  who  assist  in  the  work  of  converting  Raskolnik 
by  conferring  the  decoration  of  the  third  grade  of  the  order  of 
St.  Anna  on  any  missionary  who  is  so  fortunate  as  to  make,  with 
the  aid  of  the  poUce,  one  hundred  converts  among  the  Raskol 
or  the  infidels. 

'  Skvortsov,  Zakmiy  oraskolnikakh  (Laws  concerning  the  Raskolniki),  Moscow, 
1903,  p.  166,  cited  by  Aurel.  Palmieri,  La  Chiesa  Russa,  Firenze,  1908,  to  whom  I 
am  much  indebted  in  this  section. 


236  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Mixed  marriages  between  the  Orthodox  and  members  of  the 
Raskol  were  only  legal  if  celebrated  in  an  Orthodox  Churchy 
with  Orthodox  rites,  and  if  the  Raskolnik  party  'verted'  to 
the  Orthodox  Church.  Minors  perverted  to  the  Raskol  or  to 
any  heresy  were  placed  under  the  charge  of  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior.  All  prosecutions  directed  against  the  Raskol  had  to 
be  initiated  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  the  parish 
clergy  could  do  no  more  than  report  cases  to  the  bishop  of  the 
diocese.  A  request  for  a  prosecution  must  be  precise  and 
clearly  formulated. 

Such  in  brief  were  the  regulations  in  force  before  the  year 
1903.  They  purported  to  be  inspired  by  goodwill  and  tolera- 
tion, and  the  Imperial  Senate  in  its  commentaries  on  them 
mitigated  them  in  a  few  particulars.  For  example,  public 
vilification  of  an  orthodox  priest  was  to  be  condoned,  if  the 
latter  by  insolence  or  altercation  had  provoked  it ;  and  the  mere 
performance  of  a  rite  by  a  Raskol  priest  for  orthodox  persons^ 
especially  if  the  latter  were  not  of  an  age  to  appreciate  dogmatic 
distinctions,  was  not  to  be  classed  as  an  attempt  at  religious 
perversion.  Commenting  on  the  clause  forbidding  Raskolniks 
to  ofl&ciate  for  the  Orthodox  at  baptisms,  marriages  or  funerals, 
the  Senate  held  that,  in  such  cases,  the  ministrant  alone  be  held 
responsible,  and  not  the  parents  and  other  parties,  even  though 
they  consented.  In  Russia  it  rests  or  rested  with  the  bureau- 
cracy, lay  or  spiritual,  to  enforce  the  laws  of  the  Empire,  very 
much  as  they  please;  and  it  can  well  be  imagined,  writes 
Palmieri  (p.  411),  that,  under  the  superintendence  of  an  intran- 
sigent Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod  like  Pobedonostsev 
bureaucrats  continued  to  use  against  the  Raskol  the  weapons 
of  an  earlier  legislation.  To  the  protests  of  the  Raskolniks 
no  attention  was  paid;  their  chapels  continued  to  receive  the 
visits  of  the  pohce  who  closed  them  when  and  as  they  chose; 
for  it  was  this  fanatical  functionary's  idea  to  beat  down 
Catholicism,  to  suffocate  the  Raskol,  and  by  such  means  bring, 
about  the  rehgious  unity  of  Russia. 


THE  RASKOL  237 

The  Reforms  of  1903 

A  better  epoch  seemed  about  to  dawn  when  on  February  26, 
1903,  after  the  fall  of  Pobedonostsev,  the  young  Tsar,  Nicholas 
II  proclaimed  Hberty  of  conscience;  and  in  an  Ukase  promul- 
gated by  the  Senate  on  December  12,  1904,  a  revision  was 
promised  of  all  the  laws  directed  against  the  Raskol.  Official 
persecutions,  remarks  Palmieri,  far  from  having  enfeebled  the 
rehgious  feeUngs  and  the  spirit  of  abnegation  of  the  Dissenters 
had  only  made  them  more  tenacious  of  their  beUefs,  readier 
than  ever  to  sacrifice  everything  rather  than  stoop  to  apos- 
tasy.    Accordingly  they  formulated  the  following  demands: — 

1.  That  in  official  documents  the  offensive  epithet  Raskol- 
niki  or  dissidents  should  be  cancelled,  and  that  of  Old  believers 
or  Old  RituaHsts  —  the  latter  first  used  in  Catharine  IPs 
rescript  of  August  13,  1775  —  should  take  its  place.  These 
substitutes  the  Orthodox  objected  to  as  implying  that  they 
themselves  were  the  innovators  in  1667. 

2.  They  demanded  juridical  and  rehgious  autonomy  for 
their  parishes,  and  a  corresponding  right  to  possess  what  places 
of  worship  and  charitable  institutions  they  liked.  Till  now 
they  had  had  mainly  to  meet  for  worship  in  private  houses. 

3.  Liberty  of  cult,  and  a  recognition  of  the  legafity  of  the 
so-called  metriki  or  registers  drawn  up  by  Raskol  ministers. 
They  asked  that  there  should  be  inscribed  in  these  the  names 
of  those  who,  though  they  figured  in  the  registers  of  the  orthodox 
priests,  had  nevertheless  decHned  their  saciaments  for  a  period 
of  ten  years.  The  law  of  1883  only  allowed  Raskol  chapels  to 
be  reopened  which  had  been  founded  before  1826,  when  there 
were  1257  of  them.  Since  1883  and  up  to  1904  the  number  of 
their  chapels  had  increased  by  283. 

4.  The  right  of  those,  who  in  spite  of  their  really  being 
Raskolniks,  figured  as  orthodox  in  civil  documents,  to  inscribe 
their  children  in  the  Raskol  registers.  Members  of  the  Raskol 
inscribed  against  their  will  in  orthodox  ledgers  and  lists  gen- 
erally refused  on  that  account  to  report  their  births,  marriages 
and  deaths  to  the  police.  For  example  over  fourteen  years, 
1889-1903,  according  to  a  fairly  accurate  estimate,  out  of 


238  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

29,431  Raskolnik  marriages  only  1840  were  reported  to  the 
police;  out  of  131,730  births,  only  552.^ 

5.  Lastly  the  Raskolniks  asked  in  1904  for  liberty  to  open 
elementary  schools  for  their  children  in  which  their  own  cate- 
chisms should  be  taught;  hberty  for  Raskol  students,  not  to 
have  to  Hsten  in  secondary  schools  to  a  catechist's  lectures 
against  their  religion;  exemption  of  their  priests  from  miUtary 
service  to  which  no  orthodox  priest  is  hable,  and  free  access  for 
their  laity  to  all  civil  and  military  duties  and  offices. 

Their  demands,  owing  to  Pobedonostsev's  sudden  fall  from 
power  and  the  disasters  of  the  Japanese  War,  received  some 
satisfaction,  and  an  imperial  Ukase  of  April  17, 1905,  suppressed 
the  offensive  Raskol,  and  distinguished  among  Russian  dis- 
senters three  categories:  1.  of  Old  RituaUsts  who  recognize  the 
sacraments  and  dogmatic  doctrines  of  the  Orthodox  Church, 
but  differ  therefrom  on  points  of  ritual;  2.  of  Sectaries,  e.g. 
the  Molokani,  Stundists  and  Dukhobortsi;  3.  the  'pernicious' 
sects,  e.g.  the  Khlysty  or  Flagellants  and  the  Skoptsy  or  Self- 
mutilators. 

The  first-named  were  henceforth  to  be  allowed  to  organize 
themselves  into  a  corporate  Church  and  enjoy  such  rights  as 
the  Lutherans  or  Catholics  already  enjoyed;  they  were  to 
divide  themselves  into  parishes  under  rectors  (nastoyateli, 
nastavniki),  their  clergy  were  exempted  from  military  service^ 
they  might  found  schools  of  their  own  and  move  about  without 
that  machinery  of  passports  which  made  them  the  special 
victims  of  poHce  oppression  and  blackmail.  The  Comicil  of 
Ministers,  glossing  the  Ukase,  furthermore  gave  them  the  right 
to  own  their  churches,  hospitals  and  cemeteries,  the  right  of 
admission  as  students  in  military  and  naval  academies,  of 
receiving  decorations  and  of  printing  their  hturgies. 

These  concessions  excited  great  hopes  in  the  breast  of  the 
Raskolnik,  while  the  orthodox  journals  also  pretended  to  be 
overjoyed  at  so  signal  a  proof  that  the  Russian  people  is  hostile 
to  rehgious  persecution.  Skvortsov  wrote  as  follows: —  "We 
know  by  experience  that  poHce  measiu-es  are  repugnant  to  our 

*  These  figures  from  the  Pravoslavnyi  Putevoditel  or  "Orthodox  Guide,"  an  organ 
of  the  Russian  Church,  1905,  t.  ii,  p.  39. 


THE  RASKOL  239 

aims.  Religious  errors  are  maladies  of  heart  and  soul,  and  it 
is  best  to  use  against  them  nothing  but  the  gentle  words  of  love 
and  conviction.  Government  protection  of  a  church  by  dint 
of  law  generates  supineness  in  the  pastors,  somnolence  and 
apathy ;  and  it  is  all  for  the  good  if  the  Government,  by  with- 
drawing its  aid  from  the  Orthodox,  constrains  them  to  count 
on  themselves  and  their  own  forces  and  to  combat  with  their 
own  weapons."  ^  Yet  Skvortsov  had  been,  as  Palmieri 
remarks,  the  hammer  of  the  Raskolniks,  the  loyal  henchman  of 
the  arch-persecutor  Pobedonostsev.  "When  the  devil  is  sick^ 
the  devil  a  saint  will  be." 

The  real  feeling  of  the  Orthodox  and  of  the  Holy  Synod  was 
revealed  in  the  organ  of  the  latter,  the  Kolokol  or  Bell,  which 
objected  particularly  to  the  Hberty  accorded  to  the  Raskol  to 
have  its  own  parishes,  and  declared  that  before  long  the  best 
energies  of  the  official  Church  would  pass  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Raskol,  seeing  that  the  Orthodox  Church  in  spite  of  the  sup- 
port, protection  and  tutelage  of  the  State  was  unable  to  defend 
itself.  The  young  Tsar's  Government  impressed  by  these 
waihngs  of  the  Holy  Synod  took  a  fresh  tack,  and  a  new  Ukase 
of  April  17,  1905,  enacted  a  year's  imprisonment  for  anyone 
who  tries  to  seduce  an  orthodox  person  into  any  of  the  rival 
confessions  by  means  of  sermons  or  dissemination  of  written 
works  or  images. 

The  Number  of  the  Raskol 

What  were  the  numbers,  asks  Uzov,  of  the  Dissidents  thus 
driven  by  the  folly  and  cruelty  of  the  Moscovite  Government 
to  the  extremes  of  Russia  and  even  beyond  them?  To  this 
question  he  devotes  considerable  research,  and  his  pages 
though  wTitten  as  far  back  as  1881  cannot  be  ignored  even 
to-day,  for  as  he  remarks  their  number  is  an  important  factor 
in  the  historical  role  they  have  played,  perhaps  even  in  the 
revolution  of  1917. 

For  a  long  time,  he  points  out,  Russian  society  and  no  less 
the  Russian  Government  had  no  exact  idea  of  their  numbers, 

*  Mission  Review,  1905,  Tom.  1,  p.  542. 


240  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  relied  on  the  figures  assigned  by  local  officials  to  those 
who,  registering  themselves  as  Raskolniks  in  the  course  of  the 
XVIIIth  Century  (1715-1782),  paid  double  taxes.  "These 
figures,"  writes  Melnikov,  "in  some  districts  underwent  no 
change  for  forty  years,  no  account  being  taken  of  the  excess 
of  births  over  deaths.  Here  and  there  the  poUce  commis- 
saries even  reduced  them  artificially  year  by  year  in  order  to 
gain  credit  with  the  government  for  their  own  efficiency  as 
persecutors.  In  many  cases,  however,  especially  by  young 
officials  new  to  the  task,  attempts  were  made  to  attain  sta- 
tistics closer  to  the  facts  by  comparing  the  fists  either  with  the 
records  kept  by  the  clergy, —  in  whose  computations  the 
numbers  were  almost  everywhere  larger  than  those  given  in 
the  police  bureaus, —  or  with  independent  observations.  In 
such  cases  the  numbers  were  apt  to  shew  a  sudden  rise,  and 
on  reception  of  them  the  Government  would  demand  of  the 
local  officials  an  explanation  of  the  fact,  posing  such  questions 
as :  why  had  the  Raskol  strengthened  its  position  in  such  and 
such  an  uyezd  or  district?  who  was  responsible  for  so  marked 
an  increase  in  their  numbers?  what  steps  were  being  taken 
with  a  view  to  the  prevention  and  destruction  of  Raskol 
propaganda?  why  had  the  Government  not  been  warned 
earfier  of  their  growth?  and  so  forth.  A  rescript  would  then  be 
sent  to  the  local  officials  couched  in  no  friendly  tone  and 
usually  ending  with  a  reprimand  for  the  inconsistency  of  their 
informations  or  their  want  of  firmness  in  repression  of  the 
sect.  After  once  experiencing  such  consequences  an  official 
was  naturally  careful  not  to  betray  too  much  zeal  in  future, 
and  his  successors  profiting  by  his  example  were  equally  careful 
not  to  bring  down  on  their  heads  reproofs  which  unsoUcited 
zeal  for  fact  and  accuracy  provoked.  The  result  was  that  the 
old  figures  held  the  field,  annually  diminished  by  a  small 
amount.  Nevertheless  any  diligent  head  of  police  possessed 
formerly,  and  still  possesses,  more  or  less  credible  figures  of 
the  dissidents  settled  in  a  district,  and  sometimes  the  Gov- 
ernors take  them  into  account ;  but  they  are  kept  fairly  secret 
and  are  as  a  rule  described  as  unofficial  figures. 

On  the  other  hand  there  have  been  cases  where  the  Governor 


THE  RASKOL  241 

has  furnished  for  his  entire  province  numbers  more  consonant 
with  reaUty,  but  with  similar  result.  Questions  at  once  were 
rained  upon  him  as  to  how  and  why  there  had  come  to  be  such 
an  increase  of  sectaries  in  his  Government,  fresh  notes  were 
written,  and  after  that  everything  relapsed  into  the  old 
routine.^ 

"Not  only  the  poUce,  but  the  clergy  had  to  keep  lists,  and 
these  in  some  dioceses  presented  higher  figures  than  those  of 
the  Governors,  in  others  lower.  If  it  be  asked  why  different 
estimates  could  be  suppUed  by  the  Government  of  one  and 
the  same  region  —  the  answer  is  simple :  the  Governor  and 
the  Archpriest  alike  rendered  to  their  superiors  fantastic 
figures,  based  on  those  of  bygone  years  and  on  nothing  else."  ^ 

"The  parish  clergy,"  continues  Melnikov,  "in  drawing  up 
their  reports  paid  as  little  regard  to  actual  facts  as  the  bureau- 
crats, and,  hke  them,  kept  to  the  figures  of  earlier  years;  for 
if  they  ever  thought  of  laying  before  the  consistory  anything 
like  the  truth,  they  exposed  themselves  to  still  harsher  repri- 
mands than  they  did.  Routine  and  red-tape  was  as  engrained 
in  the  ecclesiastical  as  in  the  civil  administration." 

"Above  all  the  clergy  in  parishes  where  there  are  many 
sectaries  have  —  we  regret  to  say  —  special  reasons  of  their 
own  for  hiding  the  actual  figures.  The  registered  Raskolnik 
is  a  lost  man  as  far  as  the  priest  is  concerned,  for  he  gets  no 
kopecks  out  of  him.  On  the  other  hand  the  unregistered  one 
is  a  regular  gold  mine  for  his  household,  since  he  pays  very 
dear  to  the  pope  for  the  privilege  of  being  excused  his  ministra- 
tions, much  dearer  than  does  the  most  assiduous  of  his  parish- 
ioners for  submitting  to  them." 

By  such  methods,  writes  Uzov,  in  1850  the  number  of 
Raskolniks  was  officially  calculated  as  829,971.  Yet  in  this 
year  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Count  L.  A.  Perovski,  laid 
before  the  Emperor  a  report  concerning  them  denying  the 

1  Statistics  of  the  Raskol  by  P.  Melnikov  in  Russkii  Vestnik  of  1868,  No.  2  (?), 
pp.  416-8.  Reprinted  in  Melnikov's  collected  works,  Peterb.  1898,  xiv  368,  in 
which  I  have  read  it. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  416, 420, 422.  In  the  reprinted  edition  p.  371,  faktitcheskuyu  seems 
to  be  a  misprint  ior  fantastitchkuyu. 


242  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

reliability  of  the  official  figure  and  fixing  the  true  figure  at 
nine  milhon;  and  the  latter  was  taken  as  the  basis  of  a  study 
of  the  Raskol  in  the  Moscow  Government  by  an  official  of 
that  ministry,  the  Councillor  of  State  Liprandi.^ 

Perovski's  report  led  to  the  nomination  in  1852  of  two  statis- 
tical expeditions  for  the  study  of  the  Raskol  on  the  spot,  one 
in  the  Government  of  Nizhegorod,  the  other  in  Yaroslav. 
Soon  afterwards  officials  were  also  dispatched  for  the  same 
purpose  to  the  Kostroma  Government.  "The  following  are 
the  results  of  the  census  thus  instituted  in  1852  in  these  three 
Governments: — 

"In  that  of  Nizhegorod  according  to  the  Governor's  figures, 
the  number  of  sectaries  of  both  sexes,  20,246.  According  to 
the  statistical  commissioners  sent  to  examine  the  facts  on  the 
spot,  172,500. 

"In  that  of  Kostroma,  official  figure  19,870.  The  commis- 
sioners Bryanchaninov  and  Arnold!  counted  105,572. 

"In  that  of  Yaroslav  the  numbers  were  7,454,  and  278,417 
respectively. 

"In  these  three  Governments  then  the  real  figures  were  five, 
eight  and  a  half  and  thirty-seven  times  the  official  ones,  and 
the  official  total  for  the  three  taken  together  one-eleventh  of  the 
true.  It  follows  that  the  real  total  for  the  whole  of  Russia  in 
1852  should  have  been  not  910,000,  but  nearly  ten  milUons. 
"What  is  more,"  remarks  Melnikov,  "910,000  had  already 
before  this  time  been  accepted  in  governing  circles  as  the  true 
figure."  ^  There  is  no  reason,  argues  Uzov,  to  suppose  that 
the  members  of  the  Statistical  Commission  exaggerated; 
indeed  Liprandi  asserts  that  "attempts  so  conducted  to 
ascertain  the  numbers  of  the  Raskolniks  were  far  from  satis- 
factory, as  a  first  essay  of  the  sort  was  met  everywhere  not  so 
much  with  sympathy  and  cooperation,  as  with  hostihty  and 
all  kinds  of  opposition  and  impediments."  ^  The  Commission, 
continues  Uzov,  reduced  rather  than  exaggerated  the  figures: 

1  id.  pp.  416,  420,  422. 
»  id.  pp.  426-7. 

*  Imperial  Society  of  History  and  Antiquities  in  Moscow  Univ.  for  1870,  bk.  2, 
art.  by  Liprandi,  p.  115. 


THE  RASKOL  243 

e.g.  in  the  Yaroslav  Government  it  reckoned  278,417,  where 
one  of  its  members  J.  Aksakov  estimates  *Hhe  orthodox  as 
being  but  a  fourth  of  the  population,  with  the  result  that,  as 
there  were  in  1852  as  many  as  943,583  ^  persons  in  this  Govern- 
ment, the  true  proportion  of  dissidents  must  have  been  672,687. 
Another  member  of  the  Commission,  Count  Stenbok,  reckoned 
the  orthodox  to  be  only  a  third  of  the  population,^  in  which 
case  the  dissidents  numbered  629,056,  against  an  official 
record  of  not  more  than  12,000. 

In  the  Nizhegorod  Government  the  Commission  only  counted 
172,000,  where  in  the  sequel  the  Bishop  Jeremiah  found 
233,323.3 

We  are  justified  therefore,  says  Uzov,  in  concluding  with 
Liprandi,  that  the  real  number,  if  more  carefully  calculated 
than  they  could  be  by  the  members  of  the  Commission  of  1852, 
must  have  been  "immeasurably  greater"^  than  was  allowed 
by  them.  In  1853  the  Government  began  an  inquisition  on  a 
much  vaster  scale  based  on  a  cooperation  of  the  officials  of  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior  with  the  clergy.  The  results  of  the 
two  sets  of  investigators  were  compared,  and  the  "general 
conclusion  was  that  the  Raskolniks  were  ten  times  as  numer- 
ous as  had  been  supposed."  ^  The  sectaries  themselves, 
"though  very  reserved  in  their  confidence  estimated  their 
number  at  ten  millions."® 

In  proof  of  the  huge  hiatus  there  was  between  the  real  and 
official  numbers  may  be  cited,  adds  Uzov,  the  case  of  the 
Archangel  Government,  where  "officially  4,428  persons  were 
allowed  to  be  dissenters,  though  the  Hieromonachus  Donatus 
counted  90,000,  or  twenty  times  as  many.'  In  the  Povenets 
district  of  the  Olonets  Government  the  official  figure  was 
2,383,  out  of  a  total  of  24,628  inhabitants.^     Here  Mainov  avers 

*  Russian  Archives,  1866,  No.  4,  p.  634. 
2  Sbomik  by  Kelsiev,  t.  iv,  pp.  24,  329. 

'  Sobranie  Postanovlenii  (collected  regulations)  for  Raskol,  bk.  2,  p.  673. 

*  Liprandi  in  Imperial  Society  of  Antiquities  1.  c. 

*  Riisskiya  Vesti,  1868,  No.  2,  art.  II.  of  Melnikov,  p.  435.     In  edition  p.  381. 

*  Liprandi,  op.  cit.  p.  115,  and  Statistical  Tables,  p.  211. 

^  Records  of  the  Archangel  Govt,  for  1863,  art.  of  Donatus,  p.  80. 
'  Records  of  Olonets  Gov.,  1866. 


244  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

that  in  reality  no  more  than  five  hundred  orthodox  inhabitants 
or  rather  five  hundred  lukewarm  sectaries  could  be  mustered 
in  the  same  district.^  In  other  words  the  Raskol  have  exceeded 
the  official  estimate  by  ten  times. 

There  is  another  way  of  arriving  at  the  figures  of  the  Raskol, 
namely  the  following: 

In  the  census  of  the  Ministry  of  Cults  for  1859  the  number 
of  orthodox  beUevers  in  all  Russia  is  put  at  51,474,209.  Of 
these 

1.  Confessing  and  receiving  the  Sacrament  35,081,097 

2.  Confessing  but  not  receiving  the  Sacrament      2,196,714 

3.  Infants  not  confessing  9,232,234 

4.  Not  confessing  for  other  satisfactory  reasons       819,951 

5.  Not  confessing  by  reason  of  negligence  3,417,231 

6.  Not  confessing  through  leaning  to  the  Raskol    726,982 

These  six  categories  include  the  entire  population  under 
the  care  of  the  orthodox  clergy,  but  not  the  registered  Raskol- 
niks.  Obviously  the  sixth  category,  however,  belongs  to  them 
entire,  and  in  secret  almost  the  whole  of  the  fifth,  say  three 
millions,  as  also  the  second,  say  two.  Lastly  we  must  sub- 
tract a  proportion  of  the  third  and  fourth,  say  ten  per  cent,  or 
in  all  about  one  million.  Then  again  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  many  Raskolniks,  especially  those  who  belong  to  the  sects 
furthest  removed  from  orthodoxy,  go  to  confession  and  com- 
munion punctually,  because  this  is  their  only  way  of  deceiving 
the  poUce  and  avoiding  incarceration.  Among  these  we  must 
reckon,  says  Uzov,  "the  entire  body  of  the  Spasov  sect, 
very  numerous  on  the  Volga  and  reckoned  by  Melnikov  in  his 
Numbers  of  the  Raskol  at  700,000.  We  have  no  means  of  com- 
puting the  number  of  the  latter,  so  we  will  confine  ourselves  to 
the  approximate  figures  exhibited  above,  and  assume  the  total 
of  the  Raskol  openly  registered  to  be  seven  millions,  and  will 
include  the  secret  Raskolniks,  who  discharge  all  the  rites  of 
orthodoxy,  say  as  many  as  eight  milUons.  Most  probably 
we  may  take  10%  of  the  entire  population  or  one-sixth  of  the 

^  Mainov,  Tour  in  Obonezh  and  Korel. 


THE  RASKOL  245 

orthodox  population."^    It  follows,  remarks  Uzov,  that  in  1859 
there  were  8,579,034  of  them. 

For  reasons,  he  adds,  which  we  do  not  grasp,  Bushen  in  his 
computations  completely  ignores  the  registered  Raskolniks, 
who  according  to  Melnikov  were  in  1859  reckoned  at  875,382. 
Adding  these  to  the  sum  of  those  taken  account  of  in  the 
Statistical  Tables,  we  reach  the  figure  9,456,416. 

Thus,  concludes  Uzov,  if  we  combine  the  figures  drawn  up 
by  the  officials  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  with  those  of 
the  Statistical  Tables,  we  may  fairly  assume  that  in  1859  there 
were  nine  and  a  half  millions.  Assuming  the  annual  increase 
of  population  to  be  1.3%,  the  figure  nine  and  a  half  millions 
for  1859  would  in  1878  have  altered  to  twelve  milUons.  But 
we  cannot  rest  at  this  figure,  for  the  number  increases  pari 
passu  not  only  with  the  birth-rate,  but  with  the  propaganda. 
According  to  Bellyustin  the  peasants  are  being  converted  to 
the  Raskol  '  en  masse  J  ^  "At  the  present  time  (1880)  it  wins 
adherents  even  in  parishes  where  it  was  unknown."  ^  The 
priest  Tverdynski  declares  that,  "to  his  sorrow,  he  must  agree 
with  the  apologists  of  the  Raskol,  that  the  number  of  its  con- 
verts from  orthodoxy  goes  up  by  thousands."^  "I  have 
seen,"  says  Mackenzie  Wallace,  "large  villages  in  which  by 
the  testimony  of  the  inhabitants,  there  was  not  fifteen  years 
ago  a  single  Raskolnik,  and  now  fully  half  the  people  are 
Molokanye."  He  also  says  of  the  Stundists  that  "according 
to  the  latest  information  the  number  of  the  sect  increases,"  ^ 
in  spite  of  official  castigation  with  birch  twigs. 

Apart  from  the  above  testimonies  to  the  increase,  Uzov 
points  to  the  articles  of  the  priests  Blagoveshchenski  in 
Strannik,  1865,  No.  7,  p.  23:  Gromachevski  in  Zarya,  1871, 
No.  9:  CM.  B.  in  Strannik,  1871,  No.  2,  p.  93:  and  to  an 
article  entitled:  "How  explain  the  longevity  of  the  Raskol?  " 
in  Christian  Readings  {Khrist.  Chteniya),  1871,  pt.  1,  and  also 

1  StcUistical  Tables  of  the  Russ.  Empire.  Published  by  Ministry  of  the  Interior, 
1863. 

2  Russkii  Vestnik,  1865,  June,  p.  761. 

3  Orthodox  Conversations  (pravosl.  sobesyed.)  1866,  pt.  3,  art.  by  E.  L.  p.  264. 
*  Strannik  1866,  No.  3,  p.  129. 

»  Vestnik  Europy  1877,  No,  5,  p.  340.     See  edition  of  New  York,  1880,  p.  304. 


246  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

to  the  evidence  tendered  by  officials  that  have  studied  the 
Raskol  as  well  as  by  the  other  persons  already  mentioned. 
He  warns  us  that  we  must  fm-thermore  distinguish  between 
real  and  only  nominal  conversion,  understanding  by  the  latter 
the  passage  from  secret  to  open  adherence,  which  with  the 
relaxation  of  persecution  has  become  a  daily  phenomenon  in 
Russian  life.  Orthodoxy  incurs  no  loss  thereby;  it  only  re- 
duces the  takings  of  the  orthodox  clergy.  In  all  allusions  to 
conversions  we  have  had  in  view  real  conversion  and  no  other. 

To  sum  up,  writes  Uzov,  if  we  take  into  consideration  the 
\'igour  of  Raskol  propaganda  during  the  last  twenty  years, ^ 
we  may  raise  the  figiu'e  of  twelve  milhons  to  thirteen  or  four- 
teen in  1880. 

Uzov  next  attempts  to  estimate  the  distribution  of  the  total 
according  to  the  different  groups  or  concords  as  they  are  called. 
According  to  the  figures  of  the  officials  of  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior  in  1852  in  the  Yaroslav  Government,  the  number  of 
dissidents  (Uniats)  was  134%;  Popovtsy  lQ}47o',  Spasov  group 
8M%;  Pomortsy  1M%;  Thedosyevtsy  30%;  PhiUppovtsy 
123^%;  Khlysty  and  Skoptsy  }i%;  total  67^%;  for  the  re- 
maining 3034%  no  data.^ 

In  the  Kostroma  Government  there  were  found  of  those 
who  prayed  for  the  Tsar  (chiefly  Popovtsy,  though  there  were 
here  Bezpopovtsy  also  of  the  Pomorski  Communion)  39%; 
of  those  who  did  not,  chiefly  Thedosyevtsy  and  PhiUppovtsy, 
283/^%;   of  the  Spasov  group  31 3^^%;    Khlysty  and  Skoptsy 

3^%. 

Comparing  these  figures,  Uzov  deduces  that  the  Popovtsy 
make  up  about  28%,  the  Bezpopovtsy  about  55,  Khlysty  and 
Skoptsy  3^%,  leaving  163^%  unknown.  And  dividing  up  the 
13,000,000  Raskolniks  in  the  corresponding  proportions, 
Uzov  reaches  the  following  figures: 

Popovtsy,  3,640,000: 

Bezpopovtsy,     7,150,000; 

Khlysty,  etc.,         65,000; 

Unascertained,  2,145,000. 

1  i.e.  1860-1880. 

*  Kelsiev  Sbornik,  iv,  p.  84r-135. 


THE  RASKOL  247 

Of  the  last,  one  million  he  claims  are  'spiritual  Christians.' 
That  there  are  as  many  is  attested  by  the  facts:  firstly  that, 
according  to  the  Government  inquisition  of  1842-1846  into 
the  Molokan  sect,  its  adherents,  secret  or  overt,  numbered 
200,000  in  the  Government  of  Tambov  alone;  secondly,  he 
adduces  the  testimony  of  Mackenzie  Wallace  that  there  are 
some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  them,  and  that  latterly  their 
diffusion  has  increased  on  a  vast  scale.  Besides  that  we  must 
remark,  he  says,  that  we  are  leckoning  among  the  Spiritual 
Christians  the  Evangehcals  (Stundists),  who,  notwithstanding 
that  they  are  a  relatively  new  sect,  already  can  count  a  formid- 
able number  of  adherents. 

The  figures  here  assigned  by  Uzov  to  the  Popovtsy  and 
Bezpopovtsy,  are  based  on  those  of  1852 ;  but  since  that  date 
up  to  1880,  when  he  wrote,  they  both  increased  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  All  who  are  famihar  with  the  Raskol  testify  that  the 
sects  without  a  clergy  gain  at  the  expense  of  the  sects  who 
retain  it.  Thus  already  in  1853  Liprandi  noted  that  "the 
Bezpopovtsy  heresy  is  spreading  among  us  with  incredible 
rapidity,"  and  that  "for  some  time  past  they  have  won  over 
to  themselves  members  of  the  rival  sect."  ^  Bellyustin 
writing  in  1865  says  that  "among  the  peasants  the  diffusion 
and  acceptance  are  ever  deeper  and  stronger  of  such  teachings 
as  amount  intellectually  to  a  denial  of  all  that  even  savours 
of  priesthood."  -  Taking  into  account  the  leakage  of  the 
sects  with  clergy  into  those  without,  we  could  reckon  the 
number  of  the  former  in  the  year  1880  at  three  millions,  of 
the  latter  at  eight. 

M.  Anatole  Leroy  BeauHeu  in  the  third  volume  of  his 
L' Empire  des  Tsars,  pubUshed  in  1889,  p.  377  estimates  the 
number  of  Old  believers  (to  the  exclusion  of  other  sects)  at 
twelve  to  fifteen  milUons,  but  omits  to  state  in  detail  the  bases 
of  his  calculation,  which  is  unduly  cautious,  but  he  justly  adds 
that  no  j&gures  can  impart  a  fair  idea  of  the  importance  of  the 
Raskol.     The  influence  of  this  Russian  Schism  cannot,  Uke 

1  Imperial  Society  of  History  in  Moscow  University  for  1870,  bk.  2,  art.  of 
Liprandi,  pp.  78  and  119. 

*  Russkii  Vestnik,  1865,  June. 


248  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

that  of  most  established  religions,  be  measured  by  figures. 
For  it  exists  not  merely  as  a  Church,  a  confession  adopted  by 
so  many  millions  of  souls.  It  is  often  a  simple  tendency,  a 
bias  to  which  many  incUne  who  have  not  openly  quitted  the 
official  orthodoxy.  Its  strength  hes  less  in  the  overt  adepts 
than  in  the  masses  who  mutely  sympathize  with  it.  This 
sympathy  is  intelligible  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  it  issued  spon- 
taneously out  of  the  heart  of  the  people  and  is  a  product  no 
less  than  a  glorification  of  popular  customs  and  ideas.  Instead 
of  loathing  them  as  rebels  and  heretics,  the  peasants  and  work- 
men, who  remain  within  the  fold  of  the  Church,  often  regard 
these  old-beUevers  as  most  pious  and  fervent  people,  as  Chris- 
tians resembUng  those  of  antiquity  who  were  persecuted  for 
their  faith.  In  many  regions,  among  the  petit  peuple  we  meet 
with  the  singular  opinion  that  official  orthodoxy  is  only  good 
for  the  lukewarm,  that  it  is  a  worldly  reUgion  through  which  it 
is  barely  possible  to  attain  salvation,  that  the  holy  and  true 

religion  is  that  of  the  old-beUevers A  high  functionary, 

charged,  towards  the  close  of  Nicholas  the  First's  reign  to 
conduct  a  secret  enquiry  into  the  Raskol,  tells  an  instructive 
anecdote  on  the  point:  "When  I  entered  a  peasant's  izha  or 
hut  I  was  often  received  with  the  words  'We  are  not  Chris- 
tians.' 'What  then  are  you,  infidels?'  'No,'  they  would 
answer,  'we  beheve  in  Christ,  but  we  belong  to  the  Church, 
for  we  are  worldly  frivolous  people.'  'Why  are  you  not 
Christians,  since  you  beheve  in  Christ?'  'Christians,'  they 
reply,  'are  those  who  stick  to  the  old  faith,  and  they  don't 
pray  in  the  same  way  as  we  do ;  but  as  for  us,  we  have  no  time 
to  imitate  them.' " 

Uzov  concludes  that  the  12  to  13  milhons  of  Raskolniks  aUve 
in  1880  could  be  apportioned  as  follows: — 


Popovtsy 

3,000,000 

Bezpopovtsy 

8,000,000 

Spiritual  Christians 

1,000,000 

Khlysty,  etc. 

65,000 

Total  12,065,000 


THE  RASKOL  249 

There  remained  a  million  over,  but  there  were  no  data  of  a 
kind  to  indicate  to  which  of  the  above  sects  they  belonged. 

Uzov's  statistical  researches  here  given  are  of  singular 
value;  for,  as  I  point  out  later  on,  the  figures  given  some 
twenty  years  later  by  the  Russian  State  and  Church  authori- 
ties were,  to  put  it  mildly,  misleading.  Allowing  for  growth 
of  population  alone,  there  must  have  been  some  twenty  mil- 
hons  of  Raskol  in  1900;  if  we  allow  for  their  active  propaganda 
many  more.  In  1917  their  numbers  must  have  approached 
twenty-five  milhons  at  least.  Yet  at  the  end  of  the  century 
Russian  Authorities,  after  twenty  years  of  Pobedonostsev's 
regime,  reckoned  them  at  only  two  million  and  a  quarter,  a 
figure  fantastically  small. 

Controversial  Propaganda  against  the  Raskol 

It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  missions  organized 
by  the  Russian  Government  for  the  conversion  of  the  Raskol. 
They  began  with  Peter  the  Great,  who  deputed  Pitirim,  Bishop 
of  Nizhni-Novgorod  (1665-1738),  whose  figure  has  already 
crossed  our  pages,  to  find  arguments  against  the  dissidents. 
His  arguments  were  not  so  potent  that  he  did  not  very  soon 
realize  the  necessity  of  sustaining  them  with  the  secular 
arm;  and  in  1715  an  Ukase  decreed  death  against  any  who 
should  traverse  them.  Peter  also,  as  we  saw,  sent  the  monk 
Neophitus,  chosen  for  the  task  by  Pitirim  in  1722,  to  convert 
the  Raskolniks  of  Vyg  in  Russian  Pomerania  or  Pomor.  He 
was  no  match  for  the  dialectic  of  the  two  brothers  Denisov, 
and  speedily  invoked  the  stake  to  second  his  arguments.  It  is 
to  the  credit  of  Tsar  Alexander  I  that  in  his  reign  the  Raskol 
were  left  alone  even  by  missionaries,  but  under  Nicholas  I  the 
various  sees  were  warned  by  Government  of  the  necessity  of 
missionary  enterprise,  that  of  Perm  in  1827,  Penza  in  1828, 
Saratov  in  1833,  Chernigov  in  1838,  Irkutsk  in  1839.  The 
missionaries  were  well  paid  and  armed  with  Raskol  books  lest 
they  should  not  know  what  they  had  to  confute.  In  1853 
chairs  of  anti-Raskol  history  and  confutation  were  directed 
by  the  Synod  to  be  created  in  seminaries,  and  printed  counter- 


250  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

blasts  began  to  be  prepared.  In  1882,  4,000  roubles  were  voted 
for  the  printing  expenses  of  a  single  year;  all  episcopal  and 
parish  Ubraries  are  furnished  with  such  books  free  gratis  and 
for  nothing.  In  1886  confraternities  were  organized  for  com- 
bating the  Raskol,  especially  among  women.  Two  years  before 
an  older  regulation  was  revived  obliging  seminarists  to  study 
the  Raskol, —  a  most  dangerous  ordinance.  In  1888  also  the 
corps  of  missionaries  was  organized  on  a  more  ambitious  plan 
than  ever  before,  and  new  arrangements  made  for  public 
debates  with  Raskol  teachers.  The  missionaries  themselves 
regularly  met  in  conclave  to  discuss  their  successes  with  the 
orthodox  prelates. 

Palmieri  gives  some  interesting  details  (p.  443,  foil.)  of  recent 
missionary  literature  directed  against  the  Raskol.  The 
Bratskoe  Slovo  (Fraternal  words)  is  a  journal  which  began  in 
January,  1875  under  the  editorship  of  N.  N.  Subbotin,  professor 
of  the  Church  Academy  in  Moscow,  one  whose  name  has  often 
figured  in  our  pages,  a  man  of  learning  and  large  minded.  It 
came  to  an  end  in  1899  for  want  of  subscribers,  but  contains  a 
multitude  of  articles  of  great  value. 

In  1888  the  Moscow  clergy  started  a  weekly  journal  under  the 
direction  of  Protohierei  I.  T.  Vinogradov,  called  the  Drug 
Istiny  or  "Friend  of  Truth."  It  was  more  miUtant  in  tone 
than  Subbotin's  journal  and  came  to  an  end  in  1890.  In  1896 
appeared  at  Kiev  a  new  journal,  the  Missionerskoe  Obozrenie 
or  "Missionary  Review"  under  the  patronage  of  Pobedonost- 
sev,  with  the  ardent  collaboration  of  B.  M.  Skvortsov,  professor 
of  Raskol  history  in  the  Kiev  Seminary.  In  1899  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  Petersburg,  and  in  it  has  been  pubUshed  much  of 
importance;  but  in  tone  it  was  fanatical  and  reactionary,  full 
of  hatred  of  Catholicism  and  ever  demanding  a  crusade  against 
the  Raskol  which  it  wished  to  see  suffocated  in  blood.  Even 
the  orthodox  clergy  learned  to  detest  it.  In  1903  a  new 
monthly  journal  the  Pravoslavnyi  Putevoditel  or  "Orthodox 
Guide"  appeared  at  Petersburg.  In  1906  it  became  a  bi- 
monthly journal,  and  its  tone  was  more  liberal  than  Skvortsov's 
journal. 

Successes,  however,  have  been  microscopic,  and,  if  under 


THE  RASKOL  251 

Alexander  III  they  claimed  to  convert  annually  eight  or  ten 
thousand  persons,  this  was  to  be  attributed  more  to  the  intran- 
sigent ferocity  of  Pobedonostsev  than  to  genuine  missionary 
effort,  although  over  400  missionaries  were  at  work.  The 
moment  freedom  of  conscience  was  proclaimed  by  Nicholas  II 
in  1903,  there  was  no  more  talk  of  conversions  to  orthodoxy  but 
only  of  defection  en  masse  among  soi-disant  Orthodox.  Palmieri 
attributes  the  futility  of  missionary  effort  to  the  fact  that  not  a 
few  of  the  missionaries  and  most  popes  are  not  educated  enough 
to  reply  to  their  adversaries,  who  have  a  rich  literature  of  their 
own,  and  do  not  scruple  to  silence  them,  often  by  simply  talk- 
ing conunon  sense.  Zealous  partisans  of  orthodoxy,  Uke 
Ivanovski  himself,  have  been  the  first  to  recognize  that  fresh 
blood  is  needed  in  orthodox  seminaries,  if  the  clergy  are  ever  to 
exert  any  influence  on  the  Raskol.  The  lives  of  the  parish 
priests,  their  drunkenness,  avarice  and  serviUty  to  Govern- 
ment, in  themselves  constituted  a  mighty  stumbling-block. 
Nor  have  the  public  debates  which  Raskol  teachers  have  been 
compelled  to  hold  with  orthodox  missionaries  borne  fruit.  As 
often  as  not  they  ended  in  the  ridiculous  discomfiture  of  the 
spokesmen  of  orthodoxy,  and  only  served  to  inflame  reUgious 
passions.  In  many  cases  the  paid  missionary  of  the  Holy 
Synod  ended  by  invoking  the  aid  of  the  police  and  he  was 
everywhere  regarded  as  a  spy  in  the  service  of  the  State.  If  the 
missionaries  had  been  real  students  of  the  Raskol,  they  could 
have  spent  their  time  better,  says  Palmieri,  in  combating  the 
Raskol  in  periodicals.  Nor  v/ere  the  orthodox  schoolmasters 
appointed  in  Raskol  districts  ideals  of  Christian  virtue;  the 
net  result  was  that  Raskol  youth  subjected  to  their  teaching 
shewed  little  inclination  to  profit  by  it. 

The  orthodox  press  has  ever  been  prone  to  resort  to  calunmy 
and  talk  of  the  moral  decadence  of  the  Raskol;  but  the  facts 
in  this  field  belie  the  reports  of  the  missionaries.  A  mother  of  a 
family  who  noticed  the  change  wrought  in  her  husband  from 
the  first  moment  he  began  to  frequent  Raskol  meetings,  in 
particular  that  he  gave  up  drink,  became  herseff  an  apostle  of 
the  doctrines  that  had  regenerated  the  domestic  hearth.^ 

1  Kalnev  in  Mission.  Obozrenie,  1906,  t.  ii,  p.  62,  foil. 


252  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Liprandi,  though  as  we  saw  above,  a  persecutor,  acknowl- 
edges the  virtues  of  the  Raskolniks  in  his  "Short  Sketch  of  the 
RaskoV  (1853)  as  follows: —  "Russian  people  delight  to  listen 
to  stories  and  in  particular  to  readings  of  Scripture.  The 
Raskol  are  more  literary  than  the  Orthodox  and  make  the  most 
of  the  case.  They  are  ever  ready  to  tender  their  services  to  a 
village  neighbour,  and  by  reading  the  Gospel  and  other  religi- 
ous books  and  interpreting  them  to  them,  insensibly  win  them 
over.  The  Orthodox  envy  the  affluence  of  their  Raskol  neigh- 
bours. They  do  not  reflect  that  they  never  spend  a  farthing  at 
the  grog  shop,  that  they  keep  sober  and  work  hard  every  day. 
The  Raskolnik  wife  when  she  goes  to  town  wastes  no  money  on 
ribbons,  whereas  the  Orthodox  one  pm-chases  all  she  sees  when 
she  goes  there  or  visits  her  friends,  goes  to  weddings,  baptisms 
or  church,  all  of  which  the  Raskolnik  finds  superfluous.  The 
Orthodox  person  without  reflecting  sets  all  this  down  to  the 
superiority  of  the  Raskol  religion  and  nolens  volens  is  predis- 
posed in  favour  of  it, —  all  the  more  so  because,  in  case  she  does 
join  it,  she  finds  herself  actually  able  to  better  her  position." 

We  have  seen  how  impossible  it  is  to  calculate  its  numerical 
strength.  We  can  only  guess  at  it.  But  whatever  its  real 
figures  may  be  they  do  not  represent  the  limits  of  its  influence, 
for  several  reasons.  Millions  of  peasants,  nominally  Orthodox, 
look  up,  we  saw,  to  their  Raskolnik  neighbours  as  champions 
of  the  true  ancient  faith  of  Russia  and  secretly  condemn 
themselves  as  backshders.  This  popular  reverence  for  the 
dissenters  is  enhanced  by  their  superior  standard  of  morality 
and  of  education  and  by  the  wealth  which  accompanies  these. 
To  their  eminent  sobriety  I  have  already  cited  the  testimony 
of  several  writers.  I  add  two  more  such  tributes.  The  first 
is  from  a  well-informed  Russian  who  published  anonymously 
a  work  on  them  entitled  Le  Raskol  in  Paris  in  1859.  He  is 
hostile  to  them,  yet  he  writes  thus  (p.  99) : 

"In  general  you  meet  to-day  with  more  moraUty  in  the 
masses  of  the  people  than  you  do  in  certain  exalted  circles  of 
Russian  society.  Among  the  Schismatics  the  Popovtsy,  the 
most  (?)  numerous,  often  practise  virtues  unknown  to  those 
who  are  loyal  to  the  State  Church.    Even  among  the  Bezpo- 


THE  RASKOL  253 

povtsy,  whose  doctrines  deliver  man  wholly  to  the  caprice  of 
his  passions,  it  is  not  rare  to  behold  regularity  of  manners  result 
from  the  very  cause  which  ought  to  ruin  and  degrade  them. 
Thus  among  them  marriage  is  in  principle  only  a  temporary 
union,  and  its  duration  depends  on  that  of  the  mutual  affection 
of  the  parties.  And  yet  these  unions  seemingly  so  fragile  are 
often  solid,  and  offer  remarkable  examples  of  conjugal  concord 
and  peace.  Husband  and  wife,  being  in  love,  avoid  mutual 
provocation,  fear  to  alienate  each  other's  goodwill,  make 
allowance  for  one  another's  faults,  and  live  in  the  most  exem- 
plary manner." 

M.  Volkov  in  his  Lettres  de  V Stranger  is  equally  loud  in  praise 
of  the  purity  of  life  he  witnessed  among  these  sectaries  when  he 
lived  among  them.  ''In  general,  he  says,  they  are  also  less 
ignorant  than  the  adherents  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  Most  of 
them  can  read  and  write,  but  they  read  only  the  Scriptures, 
being  of  opinion  that  the  human  intelligence  needs  no  other 
reading."  Elsewhere  he  writes  (p.  122):  "If  the  Raskol 
reject  the  official  religion,  it  is  because  the  priests  are  servants 
of  an  administration  which  oppresses  them,  which  claims  to 
enslave  their  consciences,  which  despising  the  most  sacred  rights 
of  the  individual  violates  his  domicile,  tears  from  him  the 
symbols  of  his  faith,  his  venerated  images,  mute  witnesses  of 
his  religious  transports,  snatches  them  from  him  on  the  sole 
ground  that  they  do  not  conform  to  the  orthodox  model.  If 
then  the  Russian  people  has  affirmed  its  liberty  of  conscience 
imtil  to-day,  it  has  done  so  in  the  way  of  religious  opposition. 
With  them  the  activity  of  the  free  spirit  has  never  manifested 
itself  through  abstract  writings,  but  in  and  through  an  unin- 
terrupted series  of  reUgious  sects .  . .  Every  day  the  people's 
protest  against  the  fetters  fastened  on  the  conscience  becomes 
more  patent  and  general.  .  .Since  Peter  the  Great's  brusque 
reforms,  beneficial  as  they  were  in  some  respects,  the  leaven  of 
revolt  has  been  fermenting  in  the  masses  of  the  people.  His 
reforms  have  ever  figured  in  popular  imagination  as  an  attack 
on  their  traditions,  their  ways  of  life,  as  a  vague  and  undefined 
aggravation  of  their  state  of  servitude.  .  .They  submitted  to 
these  reforms,   but  never  acquiesced  in  them.     They  took 


254  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

refuge  in  a  tacit  and  passive  resistance  which  endures  to-day. 
The  German  and  bureaucratic  civilization  these  reforms 
imposed  on  the  peasant  annoys,  wearies,  stifles  him.  It  is  as 
if  a  cloud  of  government  employes  had  alighted  on  a  con- 
quered land  and  were  exploiting  it." 

Let  us  remember  that  the  above  was  written  before  the  serf 
was  emancipated.  Can  we  doubt  that  he  found  in  religion  a 
freedom  of  the  soul  and  conscience,  a  spiritual  antidote  and 
anodyne  of  the  slavery  to  which  the  Proprietor  and  the  State 
subjected  his  person? 

The  Publications  of  the  Raskol  in  Modern  Times 

Owing  to  the  censorship  Raskol  writers  were  seldom  able  ta 
print  anything,  but  their  works  circulated  in  manuscript. 
Similarly  when  I  was  in  Tiflis  twenty-five  years  ago  I  was 
surprised  to  hear  how  many  works  of  Tolstoy  and  other  reUgi- 
ous  authors  were  circulating  in  copies  all  written  out  by  hand. 
The  Raskol  were  able,  however,  to  print  books  in  Austria  and 
it  was  there  that  Uzov,  to  whom  I  am  so  much  indebted,  pub- 
Hshed  his  important  work:  Tserkov  Khristova  wremenno  hez 
episkopa  "The  Church  of  Christ  temporarily  without  a  bishop." 
In  Prussia  and  Rumania  the  Raskolniks  also  had  presses  and,, 
as  we  saw  above,  Kelsiev's  monumental  work  was  published  in 
London  by  Trubner  as  early  as  1870.  In  1878  the  Staroo- 
bryadets  or  ''Old  Ritualist"  appeared  in  Austria  and  ran  for 
eight  years,  the  regular  organ  of  the  Raskol,  circulating  far 
and  wide,  but  in  secret,  in  Russia.  A  similar  journal,  the  Slova 
Pravdy  began  to  be  published  in  1896  at  Braila  in  Rumania,, 
but  the  Russian  pohce  got  hold  of  the  editor  the  following  year 
and  he  went  to  prison.  In  1905  at  Klimutz  in  Bukovina  was 
begun  the  Staroobriadcheski  Vestnik  or  Messenger  of  the  Old 
Ritualists,  which  boldly  took  the  Une  that,  if  the  Russian- 
Orthodox  Church  desired  any  reconciliation  with  the  Dissi- 
dents, it  must  unsay  and  undo  the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  its  history.  In  January,  1906  for  the  first  time  they 
were  allowed  to  print  their  books  in  Russia,  and  a  monthly 
was  begun  at  Nizhni  Novgorod  called  Staroobriadets,  in  the 


THE  RASKOL  "  255 

supplements  of  which  have  appeared  many  old  monuments  of 
the  movement,  e.g.  the  Diakonovskie  Otviety  or  "Responses  of  a 
Deacon,"  written  by  the  Deacon  Alexander  of  that  city,  who 
was  burned  at  the  stake  in  1720;  also  the  Vinograd  rossiiskii  of 
Simeon  Denisov,  a  collection  of  lives  of  leading  Raskolniks. 
The  Moscow  Narodnaya  Gazeta  or  "Popular Gazette"  published 
twice  a  week  a  supplement  called  the  Golos  Staroobryadtsa,  a 
chronicle  of  the  Old  believers,  and  once  a  month  appears  the 
Isbornik,  a  splendidly  illustrated  supplement  dedicated  to  the 
history  of  the  sect,  and  of  much  value.  The  Molokani,  since 
1905  have  issued  a  monthly  at  Tiflis  called  Dukhovnyi  Khris- 
tianin  or  "  Spiritual  Christian." 

"The  influence  among  the  Raskol,"  writes  an  orthodox  pub- 
licist Vishnyakov,^  "  of  monks  and  nuns  is  still  very  great, 
and  is  seen  not  so  much  in  their  asceticism,  as  in  other  points 
in  which  they  excel,  in  their  Uterary  aptitudes,  their  books, 
their  book-trade,  their  educational  system,  etc.  All  this 
requires  spare  time,  which  the  lying  ascetics  procure  at  the 
expense  of  the  village  conmiune."  In  the  great  annual  fair  of 
Nizhni  Novgorod  the  manuscripts  etc.  for  chiu-ch  use  of  Raskol 
monks  and  nuns  are  remarkable. 

Palmieri  gives  a  striking  summary  of  the  teaching  inculcated 
in  the  Old  Believing  journals,  especially  in  the  Staroobryadets, 
PoUtically  they  stand  for  respect  of  all  nationaUties  and  all 
rehgions;  they  support  the  constitutionaUst  party,  urge  eco- 
nomic reforms,  work  hard  to  settle  the  quarrel  between  capital 
and  labour  and  to  improve  the  conditions  of  the  proletariat. 

The  Church,  say  the  Dissenters,  must  undertake  all  these 
problems.  It  is  not  an  infalUble  clergy,  but  consists  of  the 
whole  people  freely  choosing  its  priests  and  supervising  its  own 
ecclesiastical  affairs.  The  supreme  government  of  the  Church 
is  not  vested  in  any  monarch  but  in  councils.  In  Russia  they 
say  there  is  no  fear  of  clericalism  among  the  adherents  of  the 
Raskol;  for  that  is  only  possible  where  the  church  is  not  sepa- 
rate from  the  state,  or  is  hampered  in  its  life  by  conventions 
and  concordats.  Freed  from  the  support,  poUtical  and  material, 
of  the  State,  the  Church  becomes  once  again  the  free  society  of 

1  Nevskii  Sbarnik,  1867,  p.  91. 


256  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  faithful,  a  Christian  brotherhood,  a  body  whose  mission  is 
always  spiritual  and  whose  influence  is  propagated  in  souls  by 
means  of  persuasion  and  charity.  For  this  principle  of  hberty 
and  independence  the  Old  believers  have  undergone  martyr- 
dom for  two  centuries  and  a  half.  In  their  poHtical  program 
also  figures  the  abolition  of  death  and  hfe  sentences,  as  a  bar- 
barous custom  contrary  to  divine  laws.  On  the  intellectual 
and  moral  side  they  would  educate  the  people,  and  they  combat 
drunkenness  and  the  use  of  tobacco,  as  diabolical  inventions 
for  the  destruction  of  mankind. 

In  religious  matters  they  do  not  conceal  their  hostility 
towards  the  official  Church,  which  they  blame  for  the  com- 
plete divorce  there  is  in  Russia  between  pastors  and  people. 
The  orthodox  clergy,  enslaved  by  Government,  never  raise 
their  voice  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  Church.  The  latter 
should  stand  above  political  factions  and  limit  its  action  to  the 
field  of  morals.  The  orthodox  clergy  are  devoured  with  avar- 
ice. In  peasant  families  children  are  left  seven  or  eight  months 
unbaptized,  because  the  parents  have  no  money  to  pay  the 
pope  the  sum  asked  for  the  sacrament.  Parents  often  live  in 
concubinage,  because  the  popes  demand  fifteen,  twenty  or 
twenty-five  roubles  before  they  will  bless  their  unions.  Often 
a  corpse  remains  for  days  unburied  because  the  pope  asks  five 
roubles  before  he  will  inter  it  in  the  cemetery. 

The  official  Church  in  Russia  is  dead,  exhausted,  under  the 
thumb  of  lay  bureaucrats,  subject  to  the  Powers  of  the  world, 
vending  the  heritage  of  Christ  for  a  morsel  of  bread,  with  no 
faculty  of  self-reform  from  within,  and  without  the  aid  of  the 
Government.  In  its  relations  with  the  police  you  behold  it 
sacrifice  sincerity  and  authority  and  enslave  itself  to  Babylon. 
Russian  orthodox  Christianity  is  wholly  official,  a  mystic 
Byzantinism  barely  to  be  distinguished  from  pagan  formafism. 
The  Russian  clergy  preach  to  the  people  the  indissoluble  union 
of  autocracy,  orthodoxy  and  nationality,  and  deny  the  form  of 
government  to  be  a  thing  both  human  and  mutable.  This  is 
why  the  clergy  has  made  itself  hated  of  an  oppressed  people 
and  has  pardoned  all  and  every  act  of  violence.  The  Church 
has  really  transformed  itself  into  a  poHtical  institution,  and  its 


THE  RASKOL  257 

pastors,  mere  employes  of  the  Government,  by  their  conduct 
sow  incredulity  and  atheism  and  slay  faith  in  the  people's 
heart.  The  faithful  perceive  that  the  religious  Ufe  of  Ortho- 
doxy is  reduced  to  a  legahstic  formaUsm,  a  mechanical  asceti- 
cism, that  the  Russian  Church  is  no  longer  a  society  consciously 
bound  up  in  itself  by  a  spirit  of  love  and  brotherhood;  they 
know  that  hierocratic  despotism  takes  for  its  device  the 
formula:  ''I  am  the  Church,  the  Church  is  I,"  and  intolerant 
of  such  oppression  they  abandon  the  temple. 

To  remedy  such  a  condition  of  petrifaction  and  putrifaction 
the  organs  of  the  Old  believers  propose  a  series  of  measures 
that  would  restore  to  the  Russian  Church  its  primitive  and 
pristine  splendour;  they  insist  on  decentraUzation,  the  institu- 
tion of  Councils,  the  suppression  of  the  system  which  puffs  up 
and  aggrandizes  the  orthodox  clergy  by  loading  them  with 
secular  honours  and  medals,  etc.  But  the  ills  which  beset  it  are 
no  merely  passing  ones.  Its  entire  framework  is  weakened  by 
the  marasma  which  besets  one  who  for  long  years  languishes 
among  tombs.  Like  a  parasitic  organism  it  nourishes  itseK  on 
the  Uving  juices  of  the  civil  power  alone,  and  its  Ufe  will  fade 
away  as  soon  as  it  is  refused  such  diet  or  refuses  it  of  its  own 
initiative. 

In  such  criticism  one  catches  the  glow  in  the  sky  which 
heralded  the  dawn  of  the  Russian  Revolution.  Quod  felix 
faustum  sit. 

William  Palmer  writing  in  1871  the  preface  to  his  Replies  of 
the  humhU  Nicon,  p.  xxiv,  penned  the  following  remarkable 
words : 

"It  is  possible,  too,  to  imagine  such  changes  in  the  world 
at  large,  as  might  make  it  the  poUcy  of  the  Russian  govern- 
ment to  return  towards  faith  and  piety. 

"Supposing  that  before  long,  the  Turkish  empire  should 
come  to  its  end,  without  Syria  falling  under  the  exclusive 
dominion  or  protection  of  Russia,  and  that  the  Jewish  nation- 
aUty  reappearing  in  Palestine,  a  part  of  that  nationaUty  should, 
from  Infidel  become  Christian,  just  as  now  a  part  of  the  Italian 
nationaUty  have,  from  Christians  and  Catholics,  become  as 
infidel  Jews.    Suppose  then  that,  within  a  century,  St.  Peter, 


258  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

in  his  successor,  should  go  away  from  the  Italians,  become  Jews 
at  Rome,  to  the  Jews  become  Christians  at  Jerusalem;  a  sup- 
position which,  after  the  experience  at  Avignon,  cannot  be 
rejected  as  absolutely  impossible. 

Suppose  too  that,  in  spite  of  great  social  changes,  such  as  the 
cessation  of  all  coercion  in  matters  of  belief  or  unbelief,  and  of 
the  former  union  of  chm-ch  and  state,  there  should  still  exist  in 
Russia  a  government  leaning  rather  on  the  orderly  and  reUgious, 
than  on  the  anarchical  and  irreUgious  part  of  the  nation,  when 
the  pole  of  Christianity  is  shifted  from  the  West  to  the  East, 
'the  time  of  the  Gentiles'  and  of  the  desolation  of  the  Holy 
Land  being  fulfilled.  Under  such  circumstances  it  might 
perhaps  be  as  much  the  interest  and  poUcy  of  a  Russian  emperor 
to  heal  the  Greek  schism,  as  it  was  before  the  interest  and 
policy  of  the  Tm-kish  Sultans  directly,  and  of  the  Russian 
sovereigns  indirectly,  to  maintain  and  perpetuate  it." 

So  much  of  this  curious  forecast  has  lately  come  true  that  it 
is  not,  we  hope,  impossible  that  someday  the  Christianity  of 
the  West,  duly  purged,  may  hnk  up  with  an  equally  purged 
Christianity  of  the  East.  But  is  it  impossible  that  it  will  be, 
not,  as  Palmer  imagines,  the  orthodox  of  the  two  hemispheres, 
but  the  heretics  and  dissenters  who  will  point  the  way  and 
by  their  example  shame  formalists  into  true  charity? 


Part  II 
THE   RATIONALIST  SECTS  OF   SOUTH  RUSSIA 


INTRODUCTION 

The  three  sects  which  I  have  next  to  describe  are  as  char- 
acteristically Little  Russian  in  their  origin  and  provenance  as 
the  Raskolniks  are  Great  Russian.  They  are  those  which 
Russian  pubUcists  have  agreed  to  call  Rationalists  ^  or  Mystics. 
It  is  somewhat  of  a  misnomer,  but  it  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  they  are  the  outcome,  not  of  reverence  for  the  traditions 
and  ritual  of  the  Great  Churches,  but  of  inward  illumination; 
of  the  spirit  that  quickens  rather  than  of  the  letter  which 
killeth.  They  are  Montanist  rather  than  Catholic  in  tone  and 
tendency,  and,  if  in  the  Early  Church  there  was,  as  in  old 
Israel,  an  antithesis  between  prophet  and  priest,  so  in  these 
sects  prophecy  is  first,  priesthood  second;  they  are  a  protest 
against  the  latent  tendency  in  human  nature  for  the  seer  to 
develop  into  a  formularist.  I  shall  begin  with  the  twin  sects 
of  Dukhobortsy  and  Molokanye,  both  indefinably  ancient  and 
branches  of  one  and  the  same  stem  and  pass  on  to  the  Stundites, 
in  whom  German  influence  is  more  visible. 

The  origin  of  these  'heretical'  sects  of  Russia  is  obscure;  it  is 
probable  however,  that  the  Dukhobortsy  and  Molokanye,  as  well 
as  the  Khlysty,  antedate  the  Old  behevers  by  many  generations. 
The  Intelligentsia  of  Russia,  when  they  first  became  aware  of 
these  'protestant  heretics'  in  their  midst,  jumped  at  the  con- 
clusion that  they  were,  like  themselves,  an  importation,  from 
the  West.  They  had  already  made  the  mistake  of  regarding 
the  Raskol  as  a  party  of  religious  stagnation,  a  litter  of  igno- 
rance and  obscm-antism,  of  blind  adherence  to  the  letter,  of 
petrified  superstition,  of  routine  and  respect  for  an  outworn 
past.    Ever  since  the  reign  of  Peter  I,  who  first  encouraged 

1  Ivanovski  like  other  Russian  publicists  means  by  rationalism  rejection  of 
ecclesiastical  authority,  a  "protestant"  claim  to  think  out  one's  creed  and  inter- 
pret Scripture  without  the  aid  of  a  priest.  To  his  mind  also  the  Raskolniki  whom 
we  have  so  far  dealt  with  are  only,  like  the  Latins,  schismatics;  the  sects  we  now 
approach,  like  the  churches  of  the  west  that  have  broken  with  Rome,  are  heretics. 
On  the  whole,  we  shaU  see,  his  charge  of  rationalistic  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
ture means  no  more  than  that  these  sects  try  to  take  the  Grospel  in  the  sense  ia 
which  it  was  meant  to  be  read. 

261 


262  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

them,  these  'superior'  people  of  Russia  have  imagined  that  they 
alone  tread  the  path  of  progress.  They  derived  their  illumina- 
tion and  infidelity  from  the  West;  was  it  possible  that  sects 
which  rebelled  against  the  yoke  of  Orthodoxy  with  less  cere- 
mony even  than  the  Old  believers  should  draw  their  inspiration 
from  any  other  quarter?  Accordingly  this  explanation  was 
taken  on  trust  and  imexamined,  found  to  be  not  only  credible, 
but  a  compliment  to  the  Genius  of  the  Russian  people.  Yet  it 
ignored  the  leading  characteristic  of  these  sects,  which  was  that 
their  revolt  was  rather  moral  than  intellectual,  of  the  heart 
rather  than  of  the  head.  Their  cry  was  'Back  to  Christ,'  and 
away  from  a  Church  which,  affecting  to  beUeve  the  Gospel  to 
be  a  Divine  Message,  has  ever  since  the  nominal  conversion 
under  Constantine  of  the  Roman  Empire,  ostentatiously  set  it 
aside.  True  Christian  piety, —  they  contended  —  passed  under- 
ground in  the  fourth  century  to  emerge  afresh  in  the  bosom  of 
their  own  and  similar  congregations. 

They  were  not  far  wrong.  And  the  remarkable  thing  in 
Russia  is  that  this  movement  back  to  Christ  has  ever  been  an 
indigenous  impulse,  a  direct  result  of  putting  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  hands  of  Russian  peasants,  the  spontaneous  echo 
which  the  book  awoke  in  an  anima  naturaliter  Christiana.  With 
them  there  is  not  even  the  antecedent  provocation  to  become 
Christians  which  there  was  in  the  case  of  the  Raskol.  The 
latter  was  in  origin  a  protest  on  the  part  of  a  few  who  saw  their 
ancestral  customs  and  convictions  assailed,  not  by  Poles  or 
alien  Latin  influences,  but  by  their  own  countrymen,  whom 
they  expected  to  defend  and  champion  them.  Perhaps  the 
contest  with  Nikon  took  shape  as  a  spiritual  one  and  was  fought 
out  with  the  weapons  of  controversy,  because  the  numerical 
insignificance  of  the  Raskol  and  the  deeply  engrained,  almost 
instinctive,  capacity  of  the  Russian  poor  to  endure  violence 
humbly  and  patiently  at  the  hands  of  their  own  rulers  rendered 
it  out  of  the  question  to  employ  the  crude  material  methods  of 
resistance  with  which  they  had  encountered  Tartars  and 
Latins.  The  Raskol  then  was  a  reaction  against  violence,  a 
defence  of  old  convictions  doubled  with  local  patriotism  in 
opposition  to  a  civil  authority  as  cruel  as  it  was  arrogant. 


INTRODUCTION  263 

Dukhoborism,  Molokanism  and  Stundism  on  the  other  hand 
savour  more  of  pure  conversion  to  simple  Christianity.  There 
underlies  these  sects  little  except  a  conscience  responsive  to 
the  teaching  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  While  admitting 
all  this,  we  can  yet  recognize  that  the  first  two  of  these  move- 
ments exhibit  certain  traits  which  remind  us  of  the  Cathar  or 
Albigensian  sects,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  Bogomilism  of 
Bulgaria  and  of  the  Balkans,  still  vigorous  in  the  crusading 
epoch,  was  the  germ  out  of  which  they  developed.  The  foreign 
elements  they  hold  in  suspension  are  anyhow  more  likely  to  have 
entered  Russia  from  Bulgaria  than  from  Germany  or  even  from 
Armenia  and  Asia  Minor  where  from  the  earUest  centuries  was 
diffused  a  type  of  faith,  the  Paulician,  closely  related  to  Cathar- 
ism,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in  my  edition  of  the  Key  of  Truth, 
the  manual  of  the  Armenian  Pauhcians. 

Such  elements  must,  like  Byzantine  orthodoxy,  have  pene- 
trated Muscovy  across  the  Ukraine  by  way  of  Kiev.  For 
Little  Russia  was  in  close  contact  with  Muscovy  long  before 
Peter  the  Great  broke  his  window  into  the  Baltic  Sea  and  paved 
an  open  road  along  which  the  stately  German  influence  could 
advance.  It  has  been  noticed  that  the  religious  folk-songs  of 
Little  Russia  agree  in  presenting  variants  met  with  sporadi- 
cally in  Bulgarian,  Serbian,  Czech,  Moravian,  Polish,  even 
German  Hussite  sources,  and  it  would  be  an  interesting  study 
to  compare  the  Dukhobortsy  hymns  with  those  of  the  early 
Anabaptists.  If  the  above  considerations  be  vaUd  we  must 
regard  this  sect  to  some  extent  as  a  continuation  on  Russian 
soil  of  the  primitive  semi-gnostic,  perhaps  Marcionite  and 
Pneimiatic,  Christianity  of  the  first  centuries.  As  it  radiated 
from  Asia  Minor  through  the  Balkans  to  South  Russia,  so  from 
Rome  it  spread  by  way  of  Milan,  Marseilles  and  Lyons  through- 
out western  Europe.  Widely  diffused  in  the  west  under  the 
crust  of  dominant  Catholicism,  it  emerged  into  the  light  in  the 
great  upheaval  of  the  Reformation;  latent  equally  among 
the  Slavs  it  came  to  the  surface  when  the  Raskol  movement  and 
the  so-called  reforms  of  Peter  the  Great  stirred  Russia  to 
her  depths. 

But  from  whatever  sources  and  by  whatever  means  they 


264  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

penetrated  Russia,  the  Dukhobortsy  emerged  clearly  into  view 
according  to  the  historian  Novitski  (Kiev,  1832),  about  the 
year  1785.  They  were  then  met  with  as  an  organized  sect  in 
the  village  of  Nikolski  in  the  Ekaterinoslav  Government,  imder 
a  teacher  named  Silvan  (Siluyan)  Kolesnikov.  There  they 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  local  bishop  Ambrose,  who  is 
said  first  to  have  stigmatized  them  as  a  sect  of  Pneumato- 
machi  that  ''fought  against  the  Holy  Spirit."  The  sectaries 
interpreted  the  title  to  mean  that  the  Spirit  fought  in  them. 
The  people  at  first  called  them  Ikon-wrestlers,  because  they 
rejected  ikons. 

Dukhoborism  demanded  of  its  adherents  so  lofty  an  ethical 
level  that  it  spread  httle  before  it  accommodated  itself  in  the 
form  of  Molokanism  to  the  mentality  of  Russian  peasants. 
Even  so  transformed,  its  propaganda  only  began  on  a  great 
scale  about  the  year  1860.  It  must  to-day  count  its  adherents 
by  millions. 

Stundism  is  the  only  one  of  the  trio  which  can  even  in  part  be 
identified  with  a  German  evangeUcalism  or  methodism,  trans- 
ported on  to  Russian  soil.  It  probably  owes  more  to  Molo- 
kanism. If  its  adherents  claim  a  Teutonic  origin  they  do  so, 
because  as  such  they  acquire  a  title  to  toleration  not  accorded 
to  sects  of  purely  Russian  origin.  They  allied  themselves  in  the 
closing  years  of  the  last  century  with  the  Molokanye  of  the  Don, 
and  the  difference  between  them  and  any  form  of  Lutheranism 
has  constantly  increased.  That  German  settlers  in  Russia  for 
years  rarely  talked  any  but  their  own  language,  in  itself  miU- 
tates  against  the  facile  hypothesis  of  a  purely  German  origin 
for  this  or  other  Russian  sects.  German  missionaries  no  doubt 
furnished  the  Stundist  impulse,  but  it  is  mainly  a  product  of  the 
Russian  reUgious  genius. 

Ivanovski,  overprone  to  shallow  explanations  of  reUgious 
facts,  exaggerates  German  influence  among  his  countrymen, 
and  is  inclined  to  date  the  rise  of  these  three  sects  in  the  reign 
of  Peter  the  Great,  because  that  monarch  allowed  Russian 
translations  to  be  made  of  the  Latin,  Lutheran  and  Calvinist 
catechisms;  and  he  makes  much  of  the  fact  that  a  Russian  of 
Moscow  named  Dmitri  Tveritinov,   anathematized  by  the 


INTRODUCTION  265 

clergy  for  heresy  and  imprisoned  in  a  monastery  —  one  of  his 
followers  was  burned  aUve  —  had  studied  medicine  among 
Germans  and  imbibed  protestant  ideas  in  doing  so.  He  found 
fault  with  the  ridiculously  severe  fasts  of  the  Orthodox  Church, 
rejected  the  veneration  of  reUcs  and  ikons,  denied  tradition  and 
authority.  He  even  went  the  length  of  saying:  "I  am  the 
Church  myself."  He  seems  also  to  have  expressed  himself 
boldly  in  pubUc,  advocated  freedom  of  speech  and  distributed 
hand  written  tracts  setting  forth  his  tenets.  In  his  own 
chamber  he  hung  up  in  the  comer  not  an  ikon,  as  Russians  do, 
but  a  placard  inscribed  with  the  first  two  commandments,  and 
his  walls  were  adorned  with  various  other  texts.  All  this 
brought  down  upon  him  the  wrath  of  the  metropoUtan  Stephan 
Yavorski  who  assailed  him  in  a  book  entitled  "The  Rock  of 
Faith,"  which  however  was  not  printed  during  Peter's  reign 
because  it  insulted  the  foreigners  whose  presence  that  monarch 
valued  and  encouraged.  When  it  was  pubUshed  after  his  death 
in  1728,  it  provoked  a  counter-polemic  from  Theophan  Proko- 
povich  who  accused  Yavorski  of  Latinizing  and  under  Anna 
loanovna  the  book  was  prohibited. 

The  annexation  of  Kiev  and  the  Ukraine  had  more  to  do  with 
the  spread  in  Great  Russia  of  these  sects;  the  facilities  given 
in  1701  to  the  merchants  of  Little  Russia  to  travel  with  their 
goods  to  Moscow  and  the  opening  of  a  Russian  fair  in  Azov  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Don  (captured  by  Peter  in  1696  from  the 
Tiu-ks)  were  decisive  factors.  Peter's  conquests  along  the 
northern  shores  of  the  Euxine  led  to  the  diffusion  throughout 
Moscovy  of  ideas  already  fermenting  in  the  Ukraine. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  DUKHOBORTSY 

I  have  availed  myself  of  the  following  sources  in  my 
description  of  the  Dukhobortsy : — 

1.  A  description  of  them  penned  in  1805  by  a  friendly 
observer  and  Englished  by  Vladimir  Tchertkoff  in  1897, 
(The  Brotherhood  Pubhshing  Co.,  London),  from  a  text 
printed  just  before  in  Russian  Antiquity  (Otetch.  Drevn.).  I 
refer  to  this  source  as  V.  T. 

2.  An  article  on  Russian  Rationalists  by  E.  P.  in  Vestnik 
Ewopy,  1831,  Vol.  1,  p.  650,  foil,  and  Vol.  4,  p.  272. 

3.  Uzov's  description  of  them.  This  is  based  on  several 
Russian  sources,  viz :  i.  Novitski's  work  upon  them  printed  at 
Kiev  in  1832.  To  this  I  refer  as  N.  The  Dukhobortsy  ac- 
cepted this  work  as  a  manual  of  their  tenets.  It  was  intended 
as  a  criticism  from  an  orthodox  standpoint,  but  sinned  by  its 
impartiaUty.  ii.  An  article  in  the  Orthodox  Conversationalist 
{Pravoslavnyi  Sobesyednik)  for  1858,  pt.  3 :  referred  to  as  P.  S. 
1858.  iii.  An  article  in  the  same  journal  for  1859,  pt.  I  = 
P.  S.  1859.  iv.  An  article  in  the  Reuiew  (Obzor),  1878,  No.  237. 
V.  An  article  signed  A.  F.  in  the  National  Records  {Otechest 
venniya  Zapiski)  for  1828,  pt,  33  (=  A.  F.),  and  an  article  on 
the  Molokanye  by  Anna  Filbert,  1870,  No.  6.  vi.  Articles  in 
the  Transactions  of  the  Imperial  Society  of  History  and  Antiquity: 
by  I.  V.  Lopukhin,  1864,  bk.  4  and  by  the  Archimandrite 
Eugenius,  for  1874,  bk.  4.  vii.  An  article  by  Shchapov  in  the 
Dyelo,  1867,  No.  10  (=  Sh.). 

4.  Liprandi,  Raskolniki,  Peterb.  1872. 

5.  Ivanovski's  description.  He  uses  Nos.  i,  ii  and  vi  of  the 
above  Hst  and  also  D.  Varadinov's  History  of  the  Ministry  of 
Internal  Affairs,  Vol.  viii  (=  D.  V.).  For  the  doctrine  of  the 
Dukhobortsy  he  also  used  the  Orthodox  Conversationalist,  1859, 
t.  1,  the  Studies  (Trudy)  of  the  Kiev  Academy  for  1875,  pt.  1, 
and  the  monumental  volumes  of  Livanov,  Raskolniki  i  Ostrozh- 
niki.  C.  Hahn's  volume  Kaukasische  Reise,  Leipzig,  1896, 
contains  a  chapter  on  the  sect  ( =  C.  H.) 

267 


268  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Of  the  works  enumerated  I  begin  with  Vladimir  Tchertkoff 
as  the  oldest  of  our  sources;  it  is  convenient  to  summarize  it 
apart  from  the  rest  and  supplement  it  from  them  later  on. 

The  Dukhobortsy  suddenly  appeared  in  the  second  half  of 
the  XVIIIth  Century,  surprising  all  by  their  brusque  repudia- 
tion of  the  ceremonies  and  ritual  of  the  Russian  Church.  An 
active  persecution  of  them  began  in  1792  in  Ekaterinoslav 
where  the  Governor,  Kohovsky,  reported  to  the  authorities 
that  "those  infected  with  the  movement  merited  no  mercy," 
and  were  all  the  more  dangerous  because  ''of  their  exemplary 
good  conduct,"  because  "they  avoided  drunkenness  and  idle- 
ness, gave  themselves  up  to  the  welfare  of  their  homes  and  led 
a  moral  life."  Their  virtues  were  all  the  more  odious  because 
they  attracted  the  masses.  As  regards  their  relations  to 
Government  he  stated  that  they  "paid  their  taxes  regularly 
and  fulfilled  their  social  duties,  often  even  to  excess,  as  com- 
pared with  other  peasants."  The  net  result  was  that  instead  of 
being  left  in  peace  they  were  victimized  by  every  priest,  police 
agent  or  magistrate,  hailed  into  court,  knouted  and  sent  to 
prison,  burnt  alive  or  exiled  as  state  offenders.  They  were 
made  to  appear  as  "monsters  and  breakers  of  the  general 
peace."  Notwithstanding,  they  carried  their  propaganda, 
says  Novitski,  "with  feverish  zeal  all  over  the  south  of  Russia, 
and  gained  crowds  of  adherents  in  the  Governments  of  Ekater- 
inoslav, Kharkov,  Tambov  and  in  the  country  of  the  Don 
Cossacks.  They  shewed  themselves  in  the  Caucasus  and  over- 
ran Saratov,  Voronezh,  Kursk.  They  also  penetrated  to  the 
centre  of  Russia,  to  Moscow  and  Kaluga,  and  made  their  way 
to  the  north,  into  Finland,  the  island  of  Esel  and  the  Govern- 
ment of  Archangel.  Eastwards  they  reached  Siberia  as  far  as 
Irkutsk  and  even  Kamchatka.  But  wherever  they  went  it 
was  not  the  rich  but  the  poor  and  humble,  the  peasantry  and 
the  workers  that  welcomed  their  teaching.  The  educated 
knew  them  not  and  it  was  rare  even  for  a  merchant  to  join 
them." 

They  won  a  respite  from  suffering,  continues  V.  T.,  in  1801, 
when  under  the  mild  and  peaceful  reign  of  Alexander  I,  the 
Senators  Lopokin  and  Neledinski  were  directed  to  report  on 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  269 

them,  and  exhibited  them  to  the  Tsar  in  their  true  character. 
Anxious  in  any  case  to  isolate  them,  the  Tsar  allowed  them  to 
emigrate  to  the  so-called  "Milky  Waters"  in  the  Taurid  prov- 
ince near  Melitopol,  north  of  the  Sea  of  Azov.  In  1804  those 
who  lived  in  Tambov  and  Ekaterinoslav  were  also  allowed  to 
join  their  brethren  in  that  settlement,  where  on  one  occasion 
Alexander  himself  paid  them  a  visit.  They  called  themselves 
Christians  and  nothing  more,  says  V.  T.,  knowing  others  as 
'men  of  the  world.'  "Their  origin  was  unknown  even  to 
themselves,  for  being  common  people  and  illiterate,  they  had 
no  written  history;  nor  had  tradition  preserved  amongst  them 
any  information  upon  the  subject." 

They  held  all  externals,  for  example,  images,  the  sign  of  the 
cross,  fasts,  to  be  useless  as  a  means  to  Salvation.  The  external 
Church,  by  reason  of  true  Christianity  having  lapsed,  was 
become  a  den  of  robbers.  They  were  all  that  was  left  of  the 
one  sacred,  universal  and  ApostoUc  Church,  which  the  Lord 
at  his  advent  assembled,  consecrated  and  filled  with  gifts  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

Their  manner  of  meeting  for  prayer  will  be  described  later 
in  my  chapter  on  the  Molokanye;  here  I  only  note  that  the 
author  of  1805  describes  them  as  singing  psalms  and  explaining 
the  word  of  God  in  their  meetings  "without  books  and  from 
memory  alone."  They  had  no  priests  and  acknowledged  as 
such  only  Christ,  uplifted  above  sinners  and  higher  than  the 
heavens. 

Their  cardinal  tenet  was  mutual  love.  They  had  no  private 
property,  and  the  goods  of  each  were  those  of  all.  In  their 
settlement  at  Milky  Waters  they  practised  real  commimism, 
had  a  common  treasury,  common  flocks  and  herds,  and  in  each 
of  their  villages  common  granaries,  from  which  each  was  sup- 
plied according  to  his  needs.  Their  hospitaUty  was  great,  and 
from  travellers  they  would  accept  no  remuneration;  but  in 
order  to  isolate  them  from  the  brethren  they  kept  a  special 
lodging  house  in  which  also  they  entertained  Government 
officials  and  kept  the  common  funds.  Their  compassion  for  all 
they  extended  even  to  their  animals,  which  they  refrained  from 
killing  as  much  as  they  could. 


270  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Respect  of  children  for  parents  and  of  young  for  old  was 
inculcated,  but  not  in  a  way  to  give  the  idea  that  those  of  the 
older  generation  were  anything  more  than  the  spiritual  equals 
of  the  younger.  No  one  was  punished  except  by  such  admoni- 
tion as  the  Gospel  allows.  Those  who  wished  to  quit  the 
society  were  allowed  to  depart  in  peace,  even  if  they  were  wives 
of  members,  and  permitted  to  take  away  with  them  such  means 
of  life  as  they  could  carry.  Deserters  who  had  left  the  society 
because  of  their  evil  propensities  were  readmitted  if  they 
repented. 

Every  member  phed  his  craft;  some  were  traders,  but  the 
great  majority  agriculturists.  They  had  no  rulers  or  elders 
specially  entrusted  with  authority  by  the  conmiunity,  for  all 
were  equal;  and  in  spite  of  there  being  no  written  rules  and 
regulations,  there  was  no  disorder.  Three  and  even  five  fami- 
hes  would  Hve  together  in  one  large  cottage.  The  father  had 
authority  over  his  household  and  was  responsible  for  the  educa- 
tion of  his  children.  If  he  died  his  authority  passed  to  his 
eldest  surviving  brother. 

As  soon  as  a  child  reached  the  age  of  understanding,  he  was 
taught  prayers  and  psalms  and  something  of  Scripture.  These 
they  were  encouraged  to  recite  in  the  meetings.  By  such 
methods  the  spirit  and  ways  of  thinking  of  the  parents  were 
passed  on  to  their  children. 

Vladimir  Tchertkoff  gives  seventeen  of  their  tenets.  All 
of  them  are  summed  up  in  the  precept  to  worship  God  in 
Spirit  and  in  Truth.  They  did  not  deny  the  Credo  of  the 
Church  and,  indeed,  used  it  as  a  psalm.  The  One  and  Ineffable 
God  is  in  three  persons.  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost.  Through 
oiu-  Memory  we  are  one  with  the  Father,  through  our  Under- 
standing one  with  the  Son,  through  our  Will  one  with  the  Spirit; 
and  the  three  persons  are  separately  symbolized  as  Light,  Life 
and  Peace.    Thus  every  Doukhobor  is  the  Trinity  incarnate. 

They  accepted  the  Gospel  story  of  Jesus,  but  insisted  that 
his  spiritual  experiences  must  be  re-enacted  in  each  of  us.  He 
must  be  begotten,  born,  grow  up,  suffer,  die,  revive  and  ascend 
into  heaven  in  each  of  us.  In  a  word  each  of  us  has  to  become 
Christ.    That  is  what  is  meant  by  Salvation,  second  birth  and 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  271 

renewal.  Jesus  himself  was  and  is  the  eternal  living  Gospel, 
the  Word  to  be  written  in  our  hearts.  They  rejected  the 
Orthodox  dogma  of  the  Incarnation,  for  according  to  N.  they 
said:  "The  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Savioiu",  as  shewn  in 
the  Old  Testament  was  nothing  but  wisdom  revealed  in  nature, 
but  in  the  New  Testament  he  was  the  spirit  of  Piety,  Purity, 
etc.  incarnate.  He  is  the  Son  of  God;  but  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  we  also  are  sons  of  God.  Our  elders  know  even  more 
than  Christ  did;  go  and  hear  them."  Of  miracles  they  said: 
"We  believe  that  he  performed  miracles;  we  ourselves  were 
dead  in  sin,  blind  and  deaf,  and  he  has  raised  us  up,  pardoned 
our  sins,  and  given  us  his  commandments;  but  of  bodily 
miracles  we  know  nothing.  For  our  salvation,  it  is  not  essen- 
tial to  have  an  external  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ;  for  there 
is  the  inward  word  which  reveals  him  in  the  depth  of  our  souls." 
A  reader  of  Bollinger's  Sectengeschichte  recognizes  here  the 
mysticism  of  the  medieval  Cathars.  Leroy  Beaulieu  is  sur- 
prized that  ignorant  peasants  should  interpret  Christian 
mysteries  "in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  of  Hegelians."  If 
it  was  HegeUan,  then  St.  Paul  was  Hegelian  from  the  first,  and 
after  him  the  Cathars  and  Paulicians. 

Mere  invocation  of  God  cannot  save  us,  unless  we  are  pure 
in  heart.  Faith  in  Christ  is  necessary  indeed,  but  implies 
corresponding  works.  The  Dukhobortsy  know  no  monstrous 
antithesis  between  the  two. 

Like  the  Molokanye  they  reject  water  baptism;  a  man  is 
baptized  in  that  he  repents  with  a  piu^e  and  willing  heart,  and 
calls  upon  God.  "An  adult,"  writes  N.  "baptizes  himself 
with  the  word  of  truth,  and  is  then  baptized,  indeed,  by  the 
true  priest,  Christ,  with  spirit  and  with  fire."  Then  his  sins 
are  remitted,  and  he  turns  away  from  the  world.  New  birth 
and  baptism  are  one  and  the  same  spiritual  process.  It  unites 
us  and  reconciles  us  with  God,  lends  us  spiritual  eyes  to  see  him 
with.  They  ask  forgiveness  of  God  for  their  sins,  but  confess 
them  before  the  brethren,  asking  their  forgiveness  also.  But 
they  do  not  encourage  men  to  parade  and  boast  of  their  sins  out 
of  sham  meekness.  Their  only  form  of  Conununion  is  forgive- 
ness of  sins  and  inward  acceptance  of  God's  Word;  bread  and 


272  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

wine,  entering  the  mouth  Hke  common  food,  avail  not  the  soul. 
Nor  is  it  true  fasting  to  abstain  from  certain  foods,  but  to 
abstain  from  gluttony  and  other  vices,  to  practise  purity, 
meekness  and  humility.  "True  confession,"  writes  N.  "is 
heartfelt  contrition  before  God,  though  we  may  also  confess  our 
sins  one  to  another  when  occasion  presents  itself.  The  external 
sacraments  of  the  Church  are  offensive  to  God,  for  Christ 
desires  not  signs  but  realities;  the  real  communion  comes  by 
the  word,  by  thought  and  by  faith." 

The  Saints  they  do  not  invoke,  though  they  try  to  imitate 
them.  Rejecting  sacraments,  they  cannot  recognize  marriage 
as  such.  It  is  enough  if  the  young  people  consent  and  promise 
to  live  together.  The  parents  allow  mutual  love  and  attrac- 
tion to  dictate  the  union,  and  no  preference  is  given  to  wealth 
or  rank.  Some  abstain  from  marriage  for  the  sake  of  purity, 
and  such  abstinence  is  regarded  as  a  lofty  virtue. 

The  dead  they  commemorate  by  good  deeds,  not  otherwise; 
for  they  hold  that  they  are  safe  in  God's  hands  and  that  he  will 
remember  the  righteous  in  his  kingdom.  Therefore  they  do 
not  pray  for  those  who,  in  their  phrase,  have  not  died,  but  are 
only  changed.  But  their  idea  of  heaven  is  no  vulgar  one. 
The  Kingdom  is  in  man's  own  will;  Heaven,  Uke  Hell,  Ues  in 
his  soul;  and  righteous  souls  are  in  the  hands  of  God.  There 
is  no  more  a  material  Hell  than  a  material  Heaven.  The  Duk- 
hobors  of  Tambov  in  the  18th  century,  when  asked  at  the 
Alexander  Nevski  convent  to  define  the  heavens,  answered  that 
they  are  seven, —  humility,  sobriety,  abstemiousness,  clemency, 
good  counsel  aiid  charity.  The  wicked  after  death  merely 
walk  in  the  darkness,  expecting  soon  to  perish,  and  Hell  con- 
sists in  evil  feeling  and  ill  will.  After  death  there  is  no  re- 
pentance, but  each  man  is  judged  according  to  his  deeds, —  an 
unusually  harsh  tenet  to  be  held  by  such  gentle  people. 

But  Salvation  is  not  confined  to  members  of  their  sect.  It 
depends  on  conduct,  and  all  who  imitated  Jesus  in  all  ages  or 
countries,  knowingly  or  not,  have  been  saved.  "  The  Church," 
writes  N.  "is  a  society  selected  by  God  himself.  It  is  invisible 
and  is  scattered  over  the  whole  world;  it  is  not  marked  exter- 
nally by  any  common  creed.    Not  Christians  only,  but  Jews, 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  273 

Mohammedans  and  others  may  be  members  of  it,  if  only  they 
harken  to  the  inward  word.  The  scriptures  must  be  under- 
stood symboUcally  to  represent  things  that  are  inward  and 
spiritual.  It  must  all  be  understood  to  relate  in  a  mystical 
manner  to  the  Christ  within." 

They  are  careful  to  keep  their  houses  clean  and  tidy,  and 
adorn  them  with  pictures  of  remarkable  men  or  saints,  but 
they  do  not  worship  the  pictures.  The  tract  concludes  with 
two  characteristic  specimens  of  their  prayers,  imitated  from  the 
Psalms.    Such  is  our  earliest  account  of  this  sect. 

The  tenets  of  the  sect  are  written  in  no  books,  but,  accord- 
ing to  P.  S.  1859,  are  contained  in  a  tradition,  handed  down 
from  father  to  son,  which  they  term  the  Living  Book  enshrined 
in  the  memory  and  hearts  of  the  faithful  in  contrast  with  the 
Bible  which  is  written  in  dead  letters.  The  tradition  includes 
psalms,  consisting  partly  of  detached  sentences  selected  both 
from  the  Davidic  psalms  or  from  the  rest  of  the  Bible,  and  from 
the  prayers  and  sequences  of  the  Orthodox  Church;  but  in  a 
still  higher  proportion  they  are  original  compositions.  The 
mass  of  these  devotional  exercises,  the  vox  viva  of  the  Church, 
is  so  large  that  no  single  man  can  remember  them  all.  A 
father  usually  teaches  his  children  all  he  knows  between  the 
ages  of  six  and  fifteen,  and  this  curriculum  they  call  baptism. 

In  the  last  quarter  of  the  XVIIIth  Century  their  chief  teacher 
was  one  Hilarion  Pobirokhin,  a  rich  wool  merchant,  of  the 
village  of  Goryel  in  Tambov.  He  enjoyed  the  reputation 
among  the  people  of  being  a  well-read  man,  and  is  accused  by 
Ivanovski  of  having  carried  extravagance  to  the  length  of  pro- 
claiming himself  to  be  Son  of  God  and  future  judge  of  the 
world,  and  of  surrounding  himself  with  twelve  disciples  whom 
he  called  archangels.  A  second  set  of  them  he  called  angels  of 
death.  His  bold  propaganda  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
authorities  and  he  was  exiled  to  Siberia  along  with  his  family. 

Another  famous  teacher  in  the  same  age  was  Sabellius 
Kapustin,  a  retired  corporal  of  the  guard,  supposed  by  many  to 
have  been  a  son  of  Pobirokhin  who  had  enlisted  and  subse- 
quently deserted.  He  was  a  man  of  great  stature,  handsome 
and  majestic  in  bearing,  an  eloquent  and  attractive  speaker. 


274  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

The  story  is  that  he  knew  the  Bible  by  heart.  He  was  the 
object  of  such  reverence  that  his  followers  when  he  went  out  of 
his  house  kneeled  before  him  and  sought  his  blessing.  We  are 
reminded  of  the  veneration  shewn  in  the  Celtic  Church  to  its 
saints  while  they  were  still  detained  in  the  flesh. 

Pobirokhin,  according  to  P.  S,  1858,  taught  that  God  has  no 
independent  existence,  but  is  immanent  in  the  righteous;  and 
on  the  strength  of  this  notion  of  the  Divine  Being  he  called 
himself,  qua  righteous,  a  Son  of  God.  Silvanus  Kolesnikov, 
according  to  N.  held  that  "one  behever  must  bow  to  another, 
on  the  ground  that  we  are  the  first  fruits  of  God's  creation,  and 
among  all  creatures  in  the  world  the  living  impress  of  his  hand, 
an  image  of  God  on  earth."  Thus,  having  no  proper  feast 
days,  they  reckon  that  day  a  festival  when  one  of  the  sect 
visits  another.  Such  guests  they  welcome  and  escort  with 
spiritual  songs. 

Thus,  says  the  writer  in  the  Ohzor,  they  identify  God  and 
man;  for  the  two  are  indivisible  and  God  is  a  Trinity  of  Mem- 
ory, Understanding  and  Will.  Starting  from  this  idea,  says 
the  same  writer,  they  reject  the  life  beyond  the  tomb.  They 
join  at  death  the  'Choir  Invisible'  which  consists  merely  in 
being  remembered.  The  next  life  consists  in  the  memories 
which  the  deceased  leave  behind  them.  For  them  Paradise 
and  Hell  exist  not,  and  the  former  is  lived  here  on  earth.  "The 
Hving,"  they  are  fond  of  saying,  "are  helpmates  of  God." 
It  is  not  easy  to  reconcile  this  view  with  other  sources,  which 
admit  another  life. 

The  sole  difference  for  the  righteous,  writes  P.  S.  1859, 
between  this  and  a  future  life  is  that  they  will  live  alone,  apart 
from  sinners;  otherwise,  birth,  labour  and  death  go  on  as  now. 
There  will  be  no  resurrection  of  the  flesh,  nay  the  very  end  of 
the  world  can  only  be  defined  as  an  extinction  of  sinners;  yet 
the  world  does  not  end,  but  persists  forever  as  we  see  it  now. 
The  orthodox  idea  of  there  being  another  world  than  this  is 
false.  There  is  no  heaven  apart  from  the  earth;  the  world  is 
one,  and  the  word  heaven  merely  signifies  the  chosen  race  of 
God  in  contrast  with  that  of  the  Devil. 

But  these  ideas,  according  to  the  same  informant,  are  held 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  275 

in  conjunction  with  a  belief  in  the  transmigration  of  souls. 
Men's  souls,  they  say,  after  severance  from  the  flesh,  migrate, 
not  into  some  other  world,  but  into  the  bodies  of  other  men; 
and  they  are  convinced  that  the  migration  takes  place  into  the 
other  body  when  the  latter  is  between  the  ages  of  six  and  fifteen, 
that  being  the  age  at  which  the  child  is  being  imbued  with  the 
Living  Book. 

The  tradition  of  adoration,  prayer  and  praise  is  thus  con- 
ceived of  as  a  spirit  perpetually  realizing  itself  or  reborn  in 
successive  generations  of  the  young.  This  is  a  more  subtle  doc- 
trine of  transmigration  than  that  of  the  Cathars  of  the  middle 
ages.  One  asks  oneself,  however,  whether  the  Dukhobortsy, 
having  inherited  that  teaching  did  not  volatilize  it  in  this  man- 
ner. The  Cathars  also  refused  to  distinguish  between  this 
and  the  next  life,  and  taught  that  Heaven  and  Hell  are  within 
us  here  and  now,  so  that  we  have  not  to  wait  for  them. 

In  the  Confession,  for  example,  of  a  Cathar  of  Aix  (Ax), 
named  Arnald  Cicred  charged  with  heresy  in  October  1321 
(given  in  the  Dokumente  der  Valdesier  und  Katharer  of  Ignatius 
Dollinger,  Mlinchen  1890,  p.  152),  we  read  that  ''the  heretic  on 
being  asked  whether  the  souls  of  bad  men  did  not  after  death 
drop  into  hell,  answered  that  there  was  no  hell  apart  from  this 
visible  world,  in  which  the  said  spirits  by  way  of  doing  penance 
migrate  from  body  to  body  and  from  tunic  to  tunic.  And,  he 
added,  the  world  will  not  end  until  all  the  spirits  created  by 
their  Father  have  been  incorporated  in  the  bodies  of  men  and 
women  of  their  own  (i.e.  Cathar)  faith,  in  which  they  will  be 
saved  and  return  to  the  Heavenly  Father." 

In  the  Confessio  Johannis  Maurini  of  Mte.  Alio  in  the  same 
collection  (p.  188)  we  have  a  summary  of  the  tenets  of  a  famous 
Cathar  leader,  Guilielmus  BeUbasta.  He  taught  that  "true 
rebirth  consists  not  in  the  baptism  of  the  heretics,  but  in  that 
of  his  own  sect.  He  held  that  a  man's  soul  on  quitting  one 
body,  enters  another,  and  so  passes  from  body  to  body  until  it 
reaches  one  in  which  it  is  converted  to  the  sect  and  in  that 
manner  saved.  The  world  will  never  end  until  all  the  erring 
souls  are  gathered  up  again  and  converted  to  Catharism. 
That  done  the  world  will  come  to  an  end,  and  after  that  sun 


276  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  moon  and  light  will  not  go  on  any  more."  Such  was  the 
teaching  of  Belibasta. 

The  parallelism  between  these  passages  —  which  could  be 
multipUed  —  and  the  tenets  of  the  Dukhobortsy  is  striking,  and 
cannot  be  accidental;  especially  if  we  take  account  of  other 
features  which  they  shared  with  the  Cathars,  e.g.,  the  honour 
in  which  those  are  held  who  eschew  matrimony;  the  rejection 
of  baptism  and  the  eucharist,  of  the  sign  of  the  cross,  of  relics; 
the  conviction  that  the  faithful  are  so  many  Christs  or  incarna- 
tions of  Christ,  by  reason  of  which  they  ceremonially  bow  one  to 
another  when  they  meet  to  worship;  their  zeal  not  to  slay  even 
an  animal;  their  exaltation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  above  Scripture, 
perhaps  akin  to  the  Marcionite  and  Cathar  rejection  of  the  0.  T. 
Read,  for  instance,  in  the  same  collection  of  Dollinger's  the  fol- 
lowing from  the  Acts  of  the  inquisition  of  Carcassone  into  the 
Albigois,  (p.  4) : 

Item  nullo  modo  occidunt  ahquod  animal  nee  volatile,  quia 
dicunt  et  credunt  quod  in  animalibus  brutis  et  in  avibus  sunt 
spiritus  illi,  qui  recedunt  de  corporibus  hominum,  quando  non 
sunt  recepti  ad  sectam  nee  ordinem  suum  et  quod  transeunt  de 
uno  corpore  in  aUud  corpus.  Item  non  tangunt  aliquam  muUe- 
rem  .  .  .  Item  docent  credentes  quod  exhibeant  eis  reverentiam, 
quam  vocant  meUoramentum,  nos  autem  vocamus  adorationem, 
flectendo  genua  et  inclinando  se  profunde  coram  ipsis  super 
aliquam  bancam  et  usque  ad  terram,  junctis  manibus,  tribus 
vicibus  inclinando  et  surgendo  et  dicendo  qualibet  vice :  bene- 
dicite,  et  in  fine  concludendo:  boni  Christiani  benedictionem 
Dei  et  vestram,  orate  Deum  pro  nobis,  etc. 

In  addition  to  these  ideas  and  practices  among  the  Cathars, 
we  also  meet  with  the  same  argument  against  the  Eucharist 
which  the  Molokanye  use,  as  we  shall  see  below. 

Item  quod  (hostia)  mittitur  in  latrinam  ventris  et  per  turpis- 
simum  locum,  quae  non  possent  fieri,  si  esset  ibi  Deus. 

To  meet  this  objection,  as  is  well  known,  the  Church  holds 
that  the  consecrated  morsel  ceases  to  be  the  body  of  God  as 
soon  as  it  passes  the  gullet. 

Von  Haxthausen  in  '  The  Russian  Empire '  (EngUsh  transla- 
tion, London,  1856,  i,  289)  has  left  us  an  interesting  account  of 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  277 

the  doctrine  of  Kapustin: —  ''The  most  interesting  man  of  this 
sect  of  whom  we  have  any  knowledge  is  J.  Kapustin.  I  heard 
much  respecting  him  from  the  Mennonites  (German)  on  the 
Molotchnaya,  his  nearest  neighbours.  Complete  obscurity 
veils  his  birth,  name  and  early  life :  when  he  began  to  dissemi- 
nate his  views  among  the  Molokanye,  it  caused  a  schism  in  their 
body;  and  as  about  that  time  the  majority  of  the  Dukhobortsy 
in  the  Government  of  Tambov  emigrated  to  the  Molotchnaya 
Vody  (Milky  Waters),  in  the  Government  of  Taurida,  he  and 
his  followers  accompanied  them  and  settled  there." 

Of  his  teaching  he  writes:  " He  attached  peculiar  importance 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  which  was 
already  known  among  them:  he  also  taught  that  Christ  is 
bom  again  in  every  beUever;  that  God  is  in  everyone;  for  when 
the  Word  became  flesh,  it  became  this  for  all  time,  hke  every- 
thing divine,  that  is,  man  in  the  world;  but  each  human  soul, 
at  least  as  long  as  the  created  world  exists,  remains  a  distinct 
individual.  Now  when  God  descended  into  the  individuality 
of  Jesus  as  Christ,  He  sought  out  the  purest  and  most  perfect 
man  that  ever  existed,  and  so  the  soul  of  Jesus  became  the  pur- 
est and  most  perfect  of  all  human  souls.  God,  since  the  time 
when  he  first  revealed  himself  in  Jesus,  has  always  remained 
in  the  Human  Race,  and  dwells  and  reveals  himself  in  every 
behever.  But  the  individual  soul  of  Jesus,  where  has  it  been? 
By  virtue  of  the  law  of  the  Transmigration  of  souls,  it  must 
necessarily  have  animated  another  human  body!  Jesus  him- 
self said,  '  I  am  with  you  always  even  to  the  end  of  the  world.' 
Thus  the  soul  of  Jesus,  favoured  above  all  human  souls  by  God, 
had  from  generation  to  generation  continually  animated  new 
bodies;  and  by  virtue  of  its  higher  qualities,  and  the  pecuHar 
and  absolute  command  of  God,  it  had  invariably  retained  a 
remembrance  of  its  previous  condition.  Every  man,  therefore, 
in  whom  it  resided  knew  that  the  soul  of  Jesus  was  in  him.  In 
the  first  Centuries  after  Christ  this  was  so  universally  acknowl- 
edged among  beUevers  that  everyone  recognized  the  new  Jesus, 
who  was  the  guide  and  ruler  of  Christendom  and  decided  all 
disputes  respecting  the  faith.  The  Jesus  thus  always  reborn 
again  was  called  a  Pope.    False  popes  however  soon  obtained 


278  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

possession  of  the  throne  of  Jesus;  but  the  true  Jesus  had  only 
retained  a  small  band  of  believers  about  him,  as  he  predicted 
in  the  N.  T.  'Many  are  called  but  few  chosen.'  These 
believers  are  the  Dukhobortsy,  among  whom  Jesus  constantly 
dwells,  his  soul  animating  one  of  them.  '  Thus  Sylvan  Kolesni- 
kov  at  Nikolsk,'  said  Kapustin, '  whom  many  of  the  older  among 
you  knew,  was  Jesus;  but  now  as  truly  as  heaven  is  above  me, 
and  the  earth  under  my  feet,  I  am  the  true  Jesus  Christ  your 
Lord!  Fall  down  therefore  on  your  knees  and  worship  me!' 
And  they  all  fell  on  their  knees  and  worshipped  him."  These 
later  leaders  of  the  sect  seem  to  have  appropriated  to  them- 
selves a  doctrine  of  the  Christhood  of  the  believer  which  at  an 
earUer  time  envisaged  all  the  faithful,  or  as  the  Cathars  put  it, 
all  the  elect  ones  ahke.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Haxthausen 
never  pubUshed  the  fuller  account  of  the  Dissidents  of  Russia 
which  he  promised  in  this  work.  He  states  that  he  had  col- 
lected much  material,  and  where  he  came  into  almost  personal 
contact  with  sects,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Dukhobortsy,  he  would 
have  been  reliable.  Where  he  had  not  such  an  opportunity  of 
arriving  at  the  truth,  his  narrative  is  fantastic,  as  in  regard  to 
the  self-immolators. 

Another  link  between  these  two  sects  is  the  rejection  of  oaths. 
Moreover  the  Molokanye,  Hke  the  Cathars,  deny  that  Jesus  was 
of  real  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  Dukhobortsy  come  near  to  doing 
the  same.  The  conclusion  imposes  itself  upon  us  that  Pobi- 
rokhin,  Kapustin,  Kolesnikov  and  the  other  heresiarchs,  who 
suddenly  appeared  in  the  South  of  Russia  between  1750  and 
1800  represented  a  genuine  Cathar  tradition,  probably  that 
which  in  the  middle  ages  in  Bulgaria  and  among  the  Balkan 
Slavs  was  known  as  Bogomilism. 

The  Dukhobor  doctrine  of  the  soul,  of  its  fall  and  redemption, 
resurrection  and  futiu-e  life,  as  summarized  by  Ivanovski, 
wears  an  equally  Cathar  complexion:  ''The  human  soul  is  the 
image  of  God,  a  heavenly  Ukeness.  The  Divine  image  consists 
of  memory,  reason  and  will,  i.e.,  of  the  very  same  elements  of 
which  the  Trinity  consists.  In  a  word  man  is  the  Trinity  and 
the  Trinity  is  man.  The  soul  aheady  existed  before  the  cre- 
ation of  this  visible  world;   then  it  was  it  fell.    But  it  fell  in 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  279 

spiritual  wise,  and  because  of  its  fall  it  was  driven  out  into  the 
visible  worid,  as  into  a  prison,  by  way  of  punishment."  "Our 
bodies  are  cages  restraining  and  confining  our  souls"  writes  N. 
In  Adam's  story  we  only  have  an  allegory  of  the  fall.  His  sin 
does  not  pass  to  his  descendants,  but  each  man  has  sinned  for 
himself.  In  point  of  fact  the  fall  is  going  on  now  and  here, 
whenever  man  seeks  not  God's  glory,  but  his  own.  The  sin  of 
Adam,  being  only  a  manifestation  of  a  past  fall  of  the  soul,  is 
not  handed  down  to  posterity;  each  of  us  sins  or  is  saved  by 
himself.'     There  is  no  original  sin." 

In  such  teaching  Ivanovski  detects  what  he  terms  the  char- 
acteristic dualism  of  the  Khlysty;  but  in  fact  the  Dukhobors 
are  no  more  dualist  than  other  Christians,  and  we  may  fairly 
connect  them  with  the  so-called  Monarchian  Bogomilism,  which 
also  was  not  dualist,  and  which  was  known  in  medieval  Italy 
as  the  heresy  of  the  Concorregio  and  Bagnolo.  In  any  case 
the  teachings  ascribed  by  Ivanovski  to  the  Dukhobortsy 
equally  characterized  the  Cathars.  Thus  in  Dollinger's  collec- 
tion, p.  88,  we  have  ascribed  to  the  latter  the  behef  that  ''Adam 
and  Eve  were  fashioned  by  God  and  placed  in  paradise  to  keep 
his  commandments,  but  because  of  their  transgression  they  were 
clad  in  bodies  of  clay  and  given  over  to  death."  And  in  gen- 
eral the  Cathars,  whether  they  regarded  the  Evil  principle  as 
coeternal  with  the  Good  or  Heavenly  one  or  no, —  whether, 
that  is,  they  were  dualists  or  monarchists  —  agreed  in  this, 
that  human  souls,  created  by  God,  enjoyed  a  pristine  glory  in 
heaven,  that  they  lost  it  by  an  act  of  rebellion  or  by  succumb- 
ing to  the  temptations  of  the  Evil  One,  and  were  by  way  of 
punishment  confined  in  tunics  of  flesh  within  the  limits  of  the 
visible  world.  That  glory,  they  held,  can  only  be  recovered 
by  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  a  sacrament  peculiar  to  the 
Cathar  Church  and  not  shared  by  that  diabohcal  counterfeit  of 
Antichrist,  the  so-called  Catholic  Church,  which  had  centuries 
before  denied  and  apostatized  from  the  true  Christ. 

Like  the  Molokanye,  "the  Dukhobortsy,  on  the  strength  of 
the  text :  '  He  made  us  kings  and  priests,'  (Rev.  16)  regard  each 
behever  as  a  priest.  To  become  a  priest  of  the  invisible  Church 
a  man's  own  spontaneous  act  is  not  enough,  nor  even  the  assent 


280  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  his  fellows.  Still  less  need  he  be  of  any  special  calling  or 
class;  no  outward  preparation  of  himself,  no  intellectual  educa- 
tion, is  indispensable.  The  true  priest  is  he  who  receives  a 
call  from  above,  he  whom  Jesus  himself  elects;  and  he  may  be 
drawn  from  the  ranks  of  the  common  people,  may  be  one  of  the 
priests  of  the  external  Church,  or  even  one  of  the  rulers  of  the 
world.  Christ,  the  unseen  agent,  prepares  him  by  immediate 
direct  illumination  of  his  mind  and  heart.  Accordingly,  the 
call,  the  election,  nay  the  very  preparation  for  and  to  priest- 
hood must  needs  be  not  external,  but  internal  grace,  within 
us  and  not  without."  So  writes  Novitski,  and  adds  this: 
"Jesus  Christ  alone,  the  inner  agent,  is  our  true  High  priest 
and  Sanctifier,  and  therefore  we  need  no  outward  clergy;  in 
whomsoever  Christ  himseK  works,  he  is  his  successor,  and  of 
himself  he  becomes  a  priest." 

As,  moreover,  the  children  of  God  are  bound  to  worship  him 
in  spirit  and  in  truth,  there  is  no  call  for  external  divine  service, 
and  external  sacraments  produce  no  real  effect  upon  men.  We 
have  to  imderstand  and  accept  spirituality.  Rites,  whatever 
their  significance  are  not  only  superfluous,  but  often  pernicious 
so  far  forth  as  they  are  only  dead  tokens  of  the  inward;  too 
often  they  bar  our  approach  to  God.  "Ikons,"  says  A.  F., 
"are  idols;  Christian  saints  we  may  revere  for  their  virtues, 
but  we  must  not  pray  to  them.  Facts  should  consist  in  avoid- 
ance of  appetites  and  abstinence  from  excess." 

Their  conception  of  God,  says  P.  S.  1859,  as  a  being  not  self- 
subsistent  nor  enjoying  individual  and  independent  existence, 
but  as  continuing  to  be  and  residing  conjointly  and  inseparably 
in  and  with  the  race  of  the  Elect,  in  such  wise  that  without  that 
race  He  cannot  reveal  himself  nor  be  glorified, —  this  concep- 
tion is  instilled  into  us  out  of  an  infinite  condescension,  so  we 
may  call  it,  towards  himtian  personality.  A.  F.  reports  them 
as  saying:  "There  is  a  God,  He  is  spirit.  He  is  in  us,  we  are 
God."  And  they  explain  (says  P.  S.,  1859)  their  bowings  of 
one  to  another  in  their  meetings  by  saying  that  "they  are  bow- 
ing to  the  inestimably  precious  living  image  of  God,  to  man." 

We  need  not  stay  to  inquire  how  far  the  Dukhobortsy  con- 
ception of  God  avoids  the  difficulties  of  nominaUsm  and  realism, 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  281 

and  steers  clear  of  the  fallacy  of  an  universal  divorced  from 
particulars,  the  caput  mortuum  of  theological  abstraction.  We 
can  only  praise  them  for  the  morally  wholesome  concreteness 
of  their  thinking.  In  rehgion  it  is  a  first  step  to  a  better  life  to 
reaUze  that  God  is  or  can  be  immanent  in  us  as  in  Jesus.  These 
Russian  sectaries  take  hiunanity  seriously,  and  really  endeavour 
''to  adjust  their  social  relations  to  their  fundamental  concep- 
tion, to  the  truth  that  hes  at  the  bottom  of  all  Christian  theol- 
ogy, even  if  few  theologians  know  it, —  the  truth  that  man  is  a 
hving  image  of  God.  They,  more  than  most,  recognize  its 
implication  that  all  men  are  equal;  they  therefore  ignore  out- 
ward distinctions  of  man  from  man  and  hold  that  by  nature  all 
are  alike  and  equal,  for  all  have  fallen  and  all  alike  are  exposed 
to  temptation.  It  follows  that  in  the  eye  of  a  true  bondsman 
of  the  Lord  there  are  no  servants  in  all  the  world;  the  Christian 
is  servant  in  all  and  of  aU,  in  the  sense  in  which  Jesus  Christ  was. 
We  enjoy  their  help,  but  in  such  cases  he  that  assists  us  is  not 
our  servant  but  our  brother  and  equal"  (N.).  Among  the 
Dukhobortsy,  says  the  same  writer,  "children,  instead  of  calhng 
their  parents  father  and  mother,  give  them  the  titles  of  elders; 
and  parents  do  not  speak  of  their  children  as  mine,  but  as  ours. 
The  women  term  their  husbands  brothers,  and  men  call  their 
wives  sisters."  "Imagine"  (writes  a  tourist  in  the  Ohzor  (1878, 
No.  237),  who  had  visited  the  sect  not  long  before)  "an  old 
man  of  eighty  and  a  boy  of  ten  calling  one  another  by  diminu- 
tives or  pet  names,  Hke  Stepa,  Victorushka,  Lusha,  Dasha,  etc. 
Father,  mother,  wife,  husband,  brother,  sister,  children,  all  these 
call  one  another,  as  we  should  say  by  their  Christian  names. 
Only  the  tiny  children  call  their  mother  nanny.  At  first  you 
have  no  idea  of  the  degrees  of  kinship  in  which  the  members  of 
famihes  stand  to  each  other;  for,  as  far  as  names  go,  and  for  a 
stranger,  it  is  all  the  same.  When  they  meet  they  all  salute 
one  another  with  exactly  the  same  degree  of  deference  and 
respect,  whether  young  or  old,  males  or  females.  In  virtue  of 
this  equahty,  whatever  is  allowed  to  the  men  is  allowed  to 
their  women.  On  holidays,  or  better,  in  their  leisure  time,  they 
have  just  as  much  right  to  drink  or  smoke  as  their  husbands  and 
brothers.    "The  freedom  which  characterizes  the  relations  of 


282  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

husband  and  wife  as  compared  with  the  people  who  Hve  around 
them  is  occasionally  carried  to  excess,"  says  F.,  ''and  husbands 
have  been  known  to  quit  their  wives  and  consort  with  other 
women  without  the  former  shewing  any  jealousy  and  without 
discredit  attaching  to  the  circumstance."  But  this  is  the 
exception,  not  the  rule. 

"In  their  dealings  with  strangers,"  says  N.,  ''the  Dukho- 
bortsy  are  courteous,  though  they  do  not  bare  their  heads,  unless 
out  of  exceptional  respect  for  someone  or  because  they  cannot 
help  it.  In  their  society  they  recognize  no  superiors  govern- 
ing and  disposing  thereof;  their  society  is  administered  by 
each  and  all." 

By  the  same  ideal  of  profound  respect  for  the  individual  and 
by  consequence  of  entire  equality  for  all  they  would  hke  also 
to  regulate  their  attitude  towards  society  at  large  and  towards 
the  Government;  but  they  realize  how  dangerous  it  might  be 
if  they  shouted  such  principles  abroad,  and  therefore  they  shew 
some  hesitancy  and  circumspection  in  the  matter.  Whenever, 
says  Haxthausen,  in  his  Studies  of  the  Russian  Empire,  (p.  279), 
conversation  began  to  touch  upon  the  lofty  but  dangerous 
teachings  of  their  sect,  they  began  to  talk  ambiguously  and 
acciunulate  on  my  ears  such  high-flown  and  fantastic  expres- 
sions as  would  have  done  credit  to  a  sworn  sophist  well  equipped 
with  dialectical  arts. 

Notwithstanding  their  reserve  however,  their  sociological 
views  are  more  or  less  certain.  Thus  "they  attribute  royal 
dignity  to  God  alone,"  says  D.  And  N.  writes  thus :  "  Silvanus 
Kolesnikov  taught  that  we  ought  to  submit  to  authorities  and 
lords  of  this  world,  not  only  to  those  who  are  good  and  gentle, 
but  to  the  perverse, —  obey  all  in  fact,  even  in  evil  courses, 
under  durance  vile.  But  his  adherents  at  Ekaterinoslav  held  a 
somewhat  different  language.  Human  societies,  they  said,  are 
full  of  evil  people,  moved  by  faction  and  malignant  passions. 
A  commimity  of  bad  men  could  not  stand,  for  they  would 
exterminate  one  another;  for  this  reason  the  wise  ones  have  set 
up  among  themselves  distinct  authorities  to  curb  the  forces  of 
disorder.  So  far  authorities  are  beneficent  and  ordained  by 
God  himself  on  earth  for  the  good  of  the  children  of  the  world. 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  283 

But  the  Lord  said:  "  I  am  not  of  the  world  and  mine  are  not  of 
it  either" ;  and  worldly  authorities  are  not  needed  for  them  that 
are  not  of  the  world.  The  children  of  God  (the  Dukhobortsy) 
themselves  shun  evil  not  from  fear,  but  in  order  to  be  regener- 
ate. They  try  to  Uve  as  Jesus  Christ  preached  we  should  do. 
He  freed  us  as  touching  our  wills  from  all  human  laws.  He  has 
given  us  his  Holy  Spirit  and  created  in  us  a  new  heart,  leaving 
us  free  to  comply  with  all  royal  demands  according  to  the 
spirit  and  perform  acts  pleasing  to  God  in  the  spirit  without 
any  constraint." 

''The  Dukhobortsy  of  Tambov  claimed  to  distinguish 
between  good  and  bad  authorities  and  to  differentiate  their 
origins.  Kind  and  good  rulers,  they  maintain,  are  from  God, 
the  harsh  and  unkindly  ones  we  know  not  whence.  Those  of 
MeUtopol  do  not  discuss  the  origins,  but  roundly  assert  that 
there  ought  to  be  no  authorities  on  earth.  You  may  have, 
they  argue,  a  sovereign  set  over  reprobates,  thieves  and 
brigands,  in  order  to  repress  them,  but  not  over  good  people. 
Consequently,  although  they  refrain  from  rebellion,  they 
make  no  wholehearted  submission  to  estabUshed  authorities. 
If  they  submit  to  them,  they  do  so  in  semblance  only;  while 
inwardly  and  among  themselves  they  regard  all  subordination, 
and  in  particular  the  government  of  a  monarch,  as  contrary  to 
their  ideal.  Even  judicial  courts  are  needless  for  sons  of  God. 
What,  they  ask,  does  he  want  with  law  courts  who  never  in  all 
his  life  dreamed  of  injuring  another?  If  a  man  strike  you  on 
one  cheek,  resist  him  not,  but  turn  the  other  to  him,  and  if  a 
man  would  rob  you  of  cloak,  withhold  not  your  coat  also. 
They  would  observe  the  same  pacific  spirit  even  towards  pub- 
lic enemies,  for  they  look  on  war  as  unlawful,  and  appeal  to  the 
Gospel  precept  to  love  your  enemy  (Mat.  5,  38-9).  Oaths 
equally  are  forbidden  among  them,  and  they  refuse  to  take 
them  under  any  circumstances.  Regarding  war  as  wrong  and 
forbidden,  they  make  it  a  rule  not  to  carry  weapons.  For  the 
rest,  if  they  do  not  pray  for  enemies,  because  each  must  pray 
for  himself,  neither  do  they  for  their  friends;  that  is  one  reason 
why  they  pray  neither  for  the  Tsar  nor  for  the  authorities  which 
be." 


284  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

At  the  present  time,  remarks  Uzov  writing  in  1880,  they 
behave  meekly  and  comply  with  all  demands  of  Government; 
though  they  still  refuse  to  bear  arms  or  make  oath.  As  early 
as  1817,  so  we  learn  from  the  collected  regulations  regarding 
the  Raskol  (p.  75,  bk.  3),  a  conamittee  of  ministers  made  a  rule 
to  take  members  of  the  sect  as  recruits,  but  without  forcing  the 
oath  of  allegiance  on  them;  it  was  resolved  to  send  them  into  a 
special  corps  stationed  in  Grusia  (Georgia).  Later  on,  Janu- 
ary 8,  1820,  the  Government '  decided  on  the  one  hand  not  to 
acquit  members  of  the  sect  from  any  state  obligations,  on  the 
other  not  to  force  oaths  upon  them.  This  statute  also  applied 
to  the  Molokanye,  and  as  both  these  allied  sects  obstinately 
refused  to  bear  arms,  it  was  further  decided,  according  to  L.  P. 
to  allocate  recruits  from  among  them  to  sanitary  work,  hos- 
pitals and  transport.  But  according  to  the  same  informant 
the  fanaticism  of  the  Dukhobortsy  was  such  that  in  the  first 
Turkish  War  those  who  were  enrolled  from  Wologda  threw 
away  their  arms  near  Perekop.  It  is  evident  therefore  that  the 
Russian  Government  did  not  adhere  to  its  own  statues. 

In  N.  we  meet  with  several  examples  of  their  obstinate  but 
passive  resistance  to  Governmental  tyranny;  and  as  early  as 
Catharine  II  are  reported  several  cases  of  the  kind;  also  under 
Paul  I  in  1799  they  came  into  colUsion  with  the  Civil  Powers. 
In  Little  Russia  on  that  occasion  they  were  accused  of  pro- 
claiming that  such  Powers  are  not  wanted.  On  August  28 
of  that  year,  in  consequence,  it  was  resolved  that  all  persons 
convicted  of  the  heresy  should  be  banished  for  good  to  the 
mines  of  Ekaterinburg.  They  were  to  be  kept  in  chains  and 
put  to  heavy  labour,  "to  the  end  that,  since  they  reject  the 
authorities  instituted  on  earth  by  divine  sanction,  they  may  be 
made  to  feel  and  reahze  that  there  exist  on  earth  Powers  insti- 
tuted by  God  with  a  view  to  the  firm  defence  of  welldoers  and 
withal  to  the  intimidation  and  punishment  of  evildoers  hke 
themselves."  The  'conscientious  objectors'  who  actually 
suffered  under  this  edict  were  comparatively  few,  and  so  harsh 
a  sentence,  continues  the  Russian  writer  of  nearly  a  hundred 
years  ago,  did  not  daimt  their  fellow  heretics,  and  the  next 

1  Russian  Mir,  of  Nov.  5, 1876,  art.  on  Raskolniks  in  the  Army. 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  285 

year,  1800,  the  Governor  of  Novgorod  made  a  fresh  discovery 
in  the  village  of  Chude  of  men  who  repudiated  the  Church  and 
refused  to  recognize  either  Emperor  or  authorities  set  up  by 
him.  In  the  Government  of  Astrakhan  in  1802  whole  crowds 
of  Dukhobortsy  invaded  the  market-places  and  openly  began  to 
disseminate  their  heresy;  when  hailed  before  the  local  tribu- 
nals they  refused  not  only  to  give  up  their  errors,  but  even  to 
submit  to  or  recognize  the  authorities.  Very  much  the  same 
scenes  occurred  in  Siberia  in  1807.  N.  remarks  that,  in  all 
probability,  it  was  only  want  of  opportunity  and  means  that 
prevented  the  Dukhobortsy  from  re-enacting  the  horrible 
mutinies  and  bloody  disputes  which  characterized  the  rising 
of  the  similar  sect  of  Anabaptists  in  Westphalia;  but,  as  Uzov 
remarks,  the  subsequent  fortunes  of  the  sect  are  far  from  justi- 
fying this  surmise.  Shchapov  in  the  Dyelo  (1867,  No.  10) 
shews  that  in  his  time  they  were  much  less  intent  on  quarrelhng 
with  the  authorities  than  on  works  of  social  reform  and  recon- 
struction and  on  creating  a  type  of  community  at  once  just  and 
sensible.  Their  superior  morale  marked  them  out  among  the 
surrounding  population  as  ears  of  corn  among  tares.  They 
were  equally  distinguished  by  their  comfortable  circum- 
stances —  this  being  due  to  the  aid  they  rendered  to  each  other 
in  misfortune.  In  their  teaching  and  conduct  brotherly  love 
was  inculcated  above  all  other  virtues,  and  charity  and  socia- 
bility characterized  their  mutual  relations.  They  were  as  N. 
attests,  sober,  hardworking  and  hospitable;  their  homes  and 
dress  were  ever  clean  and  neat,  and  they  gave  themselves  up 
entirely  to  the  cultivation  of  their  fields  and  the  tending  of  their 
flocks.  The  only  punishment  known  among  them,  says 
Shchapov,  was  exclusion  from  the  Society  and  it  was  reserved 
for  open  and  notorious  offenders. 

They  excel  the  populations  round  them,  he  says,  no  less  in 
physical  health  than  in  moraUty;  their  women  are  known  for 
their  superior  stature  and  robust  constitutions,  and  according 
to  F.  excel  in  intelligence  and  beauty.  This  fact,  remarks 
Uzov,  can  only  surprise  observers  who  take  account  of  what 
they  have  suffered  for  their  opinions;  for  no  sooner  are  they 
settled  in  one  district  than  they  are  chased  out  of  it  into 


286  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

another,  into  strange  horizons  where,  broken  and  ruined  by 
enforced  migration,  they  have  to  adapt  themselves  to  new 
conditions  of  the  nature  around  them. 

In  the  Caucasian  settlements,  whither  Nicholas  I  relegated 
them  in  1841,  they  are  environed  by  Armenians,  Georgians, 
Persians  and  other  tribes.  Here,  says  N.,  they  cannot  fulfil 
what  they  deem  to  be  their  duty,  the  dissemination,  namely  of 
their  doctrine.  Children  of  God  as  they  are  assiu-ed  they  are, 
they  have  received  God's  behest  to  teach  one  another.  Ser- 
vants of  the  Lord,  they  strive  ever  and  punctually  to  discharge 
their  debt  to  the  poor  and  to  give  away  to  others,  their  talents, 
all  that  they  themselves  received  from  on  high,  to  each  accord- 
ing to  his  several  ability  (Mt.  25,  15).  But  under  the  condi- 
tions, says  Uzov,  which  prevailed  in  his  day,  they  found  it 
difficult  to  harmonize  their  efforts  to  build  up  their  communi- 
ties with  the  sacred  duty  of  propaganda. 

But  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  Dukhobortsy,  because  they 
regard  themselves  as  children  of  God  are  wanting  in  the  large 
charity  which  admits  the  salvation  of  those  outside  their  fold. 
There  is  no  narrow  sectarianism  about  them,  as  Ivanovski  him- 
self attests  when  he  writes  as  follows:  ''Their  Church  is  the 
gathering  together  of  those  whom  God  himself  separates  from 
the  people  of  the  world.  These  elect  ones  are  not  distinguished 
by  any  special  symbols,  not  united  in  any  special  community, 
with  distinct  doctrine  and  divine  service.  They  are  scattered 
all  over  the  world  and  belong  to  all  confessions,  not  only  to  the 
Christian,  but  also  to  the  Jewish,  whose  adherents  do  not 
recognize  Christ." 

In  the  spirit  of  a  sectary  he  adds:  ''In  the  presence  of  such 
indifferentism  it  is  difficult  to  believe  they  even  constitute  a 
religious  sect;  while  admitting  in  a  large  sense  the  elect  of  all 
sorts  of  faiths  into  the  number  of  the  members  of  an  invisible 
Church  everywhere  diffused,  in  a  narrower  sense  they  under- 
stand by  the  word  Church  themselves  in  particular."  And  yet 
he  proceeds  to  set  before  us  their  ideal  of  a  Church.  "We  are 
the  Hving  temples  of  God,  the  altars,  the  throne  of  God.  In  us 
the  Holy  Trinity  is  made  flesh;  the  Dukhobor  is  at  once  priest 
and  sacrificer  and  sacrifice.  The  heart  is  altar,  the  will  is 
offering,  the  priest  is  the  soul." 


THE  DUKHOBORTSY  287 

It  is  now  a  hundred  years  ago,  that  in  1819,  the  English 
Society  of  Friends  sent  a  mission  to  Russia  to  acquaint  them- 
selves with  a  society  so  akin  to  their  own;  its  members  were 
shocked  at  the  Dukhobor  admission  that  they  looked  upon 
Jesus  in  no  other  hght  than  that  of  a  good  man,  and  therefore 
had  no  confidence  in  him  as  a  Saviour  from  sin.  These  good 
Quakers  expected  to  find  ordinary  evangehcal  orthodoxy,  but 
did  not.  Long  afterwards  the  Friends,  in  1895,  rendered  them 
all  the  help  they  could  in  the  persecutions  which  waxed  ever 
crueller.  A  good  and  clear  account  of  this  via  dolorosa  which 
ended  in  the  removal  of  several  thousands  of  them  to  Canada 
by  the  kind  offices  of  the  Quakers,  can  be  read  in  Vladimir 
Tchertkoff's  tract,  Christian  Martyrdom  in  Russia,  London, 
1897,  in  Aylmer  Maude's  A  peculiar  People,  New  York,  1904, 
and  in  many  other  EngUsh  publications.  For  the  details  of 
these  persecutions  at  the  hands  of  the  late  Russian  Govern- 
ment I  refer  my  readers  to  these  sources.  Their  later  history, 
especially  in  Canada,  is  adequately  related  by  Mr.  Maude,  to 
whom  I  owe  many  of  my  citations  of  N.  I  have  been  con- 
cerned mainly  to  recount  the  early  history  and  tenets  of  so 
remarkable  a  spiritual  movement,  perhaps  more  expressive  of 
the  true  soul  of  the  Russian  peasant  than  any  other,  with  the 
exception  of  Molokanism. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  MOLOKANYE 

The  Evidence  of  their  Confession  of  Faith 

In  Geneva  in  1865  was  printed  in  Russian  a  manual  of  this 
Sect  called  '  The  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  spiritual  Christians 
called  Molokanye.'  It  is  an  account  of  the  Sect  by  its  own 
members,  and  having  been  written  in  1862  deserves  to  be  sum- 
marized. 

''Before  we  begin  to  set  forth  our  confession  of  faith,  we  have 
wished  to  refute  certain  false  impressions  that  exist  about  us 
and  to  clear  ourselves  of  the  baseless  calumnies  circulated 
against  us,  chiefly  by  the  Greco-Russian  clergy." 

"They  tax  us  with  being  innovators,  with  having  invented 
some  sort  of  new  confession,  and  they  even  call  us  renegades 
from  Christianity." 

"  In  justification  of  ourselves  we  answer  that  even  if  our  faith 
were  a  novelty,  that  can  be  no  sufficient  cause  of  reprehension; 
for  the  excellence  of  a  faith  is  measured  not  by  its  antiquity, 
but  by  its  truth.  Christ's  own  teaching  was  not  revealed  prior 
to  all  other  creeds;  it  is  new  by  comparison,  for  example,  with 
Chinese,  Indian,  Greek  and  many  others,  and  yet  no  one  hesi- 
tates to  give  it  a  preference  over  these,  and  the  preference  is 
assigned  not  on  the  score  of  its  antiquity,  but  because  it  is  true 
teaching." 

"  If  anyone  is  to  be  accused  of  arbitrary  innovations,  it  is  not 
us,  but  the  Greco-Russian  Church,  since  it  has  introduced  many 
alterations  in  Christ's  teaching,  whereas  we  strictly  observe 
holy  writ;  and  when  we  abandoned  that  conmiunion,  far 
from  creating  any  new  faith  whatever  for  ourselves,  we  reverted 
to  the  pure  Christian  doctrine,  far  older  than  that  of  the  said 
Church  and  —  what  is  capital  —  truer,  for  it  was  from  God 
and  consequently  comprised  in  itself  all  truth." 

"As  regards  our  being  renegades  from  the  teaching  of  that 
Church,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  as  regards  the  revival  in 

289 


290  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Russia  of  true  Christian  worship,  we  have  preserved  among 
us  the  following  tradition.  During  the  reign  of  Tsar  Ivan 
Vasilevich  the  Terrible,  a  certain  English  physician  was  called 
to  the  court  of  Moscow;  they  regarded  him  in  the  capital, 
such  was  the  temper  of  the  age  and  the  savagery  of  the  people, 
as  Antichrist,  proclaiming  him  accursed  and  barring  him  out  of 
their  houses  and  homes.  Of  his  family  there  remains  no  trace 
in  tradition,  but  by  some  chance  he  had  formed  an  acquaint- 
ance with  a  well  known  proprietor  of  Tambov  who  was  then  at 
court.  Enjoying  his  hospitality,  and  also  finding  him  to  be  a 
lover  of  holy  Scripture,  he  conversed  much  with  him  about  the 
Bible,  which  was  at  that  time  in  Russia  a  book  forbidden  to 
anyone  who  was  not  a  member  of  the  higher  clergy.  This 
proprietor  had  a  favourite  servant,  a  man  of  intelligence  and 
reflection,  a  certain  Matthew  Semenov,  who  grasped  Bibhcal 
truth  more  quickly  than  his  master,  and  therefore  without 
delay  conceived  a  contempt  for  the  rites  of  the  Greco-Russian 
Church  and  for  prostrations  to  ikons;  having  procured  a  Slav 
Bible,  he  began  to  instil  into  his  neighbours  the  unadultered 
truth  about  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Now 
in  those  times  it  was  very  dangerous,  nay  almost  wholly  impos- 
sible not  only  to  utter,  but  even  to  conceive  anything  in  opposi- 
tion of  the  Church.  Consequently  Matthew's  abandonment 
of  it  was  no  sooner  noticed,  in  particular  his  refusal  to  prostrate 
himself  to  ikons,  than  he  was  denounced  to  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  and  the  unfortunate,  but  true  worshipper  of  God 
was  sentenced  to  death  and  broken  on  the  wheel." 

"  Some  of  the  martyr's  disciples,  peasants  of  the  aforesaid 
proprietor,  on  their  arrival  at  their  birthplace  in  the  Govern- 
ment of  Tambov,  began  with  the  help  of  the  Bible  they  had 
brought  with  them  quietly  to  propagate  the  worship  of  God 
in  spirit  and  in  truth.  A  considerable  number  of  people  fol- 
lowed their  teaching  in  different  villages;  but  the  teachers 
themselves, —  such  was  the  rigour  and  unbridled  power  of  the 
clergy  in  those  days  —  were  quickly  discovered,  handed  over 
to  the  tribimals  and  cruelly  knouted  by  the  hangmen,  after 
which  they  were  sent  for  ever  to  prison  with  hard  labour." 

"  Their  followers  did  not  cease  in  secret  to  propagate  their 


THE  MOLOKANYE  291 

teaching;  but  the  common  people,  failing  to  comprehend  the 
truth  and  sometimes  surprising  them  when  they  were  bowing 
during  their  religious  services  to  persons  in  their  chambers, 
took  it  into  their  heads  that  they  were  bowing  to  chinks,  and 
so  nicknamed  them  the  Chinkers,  The  clergy  went  to  work 
more  inteUigently,  and  observing  that  during  Lent,  they  always 
partook  of  milk  which  is  then  forbidden,  nicknamed  them 
Molokanye  (from  moloko  —  milk)." 

"  The  teaching  was  spread  from  the  Tambov  Government  by 
Semen  Uklein  to  the  Voronezh  Government,  to  the  Mikhail- 
ovsky  Cossack  settlement  on  the  Don  and  to  the  Saratov  Gov- 
ernment, for  which  cause  the  adherents  of  the  doctrine  were  in 
these  localities  for  a  long  time  known  as  Semenovtsy;  by  Isaiah 
Ivanov  Krylov  to  the  line  of  the  Caucasus  and  across  the  Volga; 
by  Peter  Dementev  to  the  Governments  of  Nizhegorod  and 
Vladimir;  by  Moses  the  Dalmatian  to  that  of  Ryazan.  Many 
of  their  successors  in  these  places  were  delated  by  the  clergy 
and  haled  before  the  courts,  many  of  them  punished  and 
exiled  either  to  Siberia  or  the  Caucasus  or  the  Tauric  Cherson- 
ese. By  these  martyrs  for  the  truth,  the  true  Christian  doctrine 
was  diffused  in  those  regions." 

"  Meanwhile  some  of  its  adherents  conceived  it  to  be  super- 
fluous to  read  the  Bible  and  determine  Faith  by  what  is  written 
in  it ;  they  separated  off  from  the  Spiritual  Christians  or  Molo- 
kanye, and  formed  a  separate  sect,  who  were  known  as  Dukho- 
bortsy.  Others  considered  it  best  to  fulfil  the  Mosaic  law  alone, 
and  they  do  not  read  the  New  Testament,  and  feast,  not  Sun- 
day, but  the  Sabbath,  for  which  reason  they  were  called  Sab- 
batarians." 

Here  we  pause,  to  ask  what  is  the  value  of  the  account  here 
given  by  the  Molokanye  of  their  origin,  and  in  particular  of  their 
statement  that  a  Matthew  Semenov,  servant  of  a  proprietor  of 
Tambov,  first  sowed  the  seed  from  which  they  are  sprung  in 
the  reign  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  As  we  note  below  (p.  305)  the 
historian  Kostomarov  identifies  him  with  a  Matthew  Semeno- 
vitch  Bashkin  who  in  1553-4  was  tried  and  condemned  by  a 
council  of  bishops  in  Moscow  for  heresy.  Nicholas  Kosto- 
marov, however,  in  his  Historical  Monographs,  Petersburg,  18(33, 


292  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

p.  454,  casts  legitimate  doubts  on  his  heresy.  He  relates  the 
trial  from  contemporary  documents  and  shows  that  there  was 
nothing  to  incriminate  Bashkin  save  his  own  confession  extorted 
by  fear  and  agony  of  the  rack.  He  was  accused  of  denying  the 
Church  and  its  sacraments,  because  he  taught  that  the  Church 
is  the  union  of  the  Faithful  and  not  a  mere  building  of  brick 
and  stone.  But  this  is  an  orthodox  opinion,  though  so  often 
put  forward  by  Armenian  Dissenters  (See  Key  of  Truth, 
Introduction  p.  clxiv)  and  by  European  Cathars.  He  was 
accused  of  slighting  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  because  in 
prison  he  wrote  a  prayer  addressed  to  our  Father  in  Heaven. 
The  same  heresy  attaches  to  the  Lord's  prayer.  Also  of  deny- 
ing the  Sacrament  of  penance,  and  yet  what  led  to  his  trial  was 
the  circimistance  that  he  went  to  confess  to  a  priest  and  dis- 
closed to  him  that  he  took  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  his  rule 
of  life,  had  therefore  emancipated  his  serfs,  and  held  that  other 
slave  owners  ought  to  do  the  same. 

It  was  no  doubt  such  opinions  as  these  that  got  him  into 
trouble,  and  they  may  have  survived  him.  The  Molokan 
statement  that  the  Church  withheld  the  Scriptures  from  the 
people  and  that  Bashkin  put  them  into  their  hands  needs  quali- 
fication. Copies  even  of  the  New  Testament  were  in  Russia 
rare  in  that  epoch  and  to  be  had  in  manuscript  only.  It 
reminds  one  of  the  similar  accusation,  equally  vain,  brought  by 
Lutherans  and  Protestants  against  the  Latin  Church. 

In  the  rest  of  their  manifesto  the  Molokanye  point  out  that  in 
their  preaching  they  rely  solely  on  the  Bible,  wherefore  their 
tenets  are  not  vain  imaginings  and  dreams,  nor  rightly  esteemed 
pernicious  by  the  Government,  whose  action  they  attribute  to 
the  ill  will  of  the  clergy  which  spares  no  calumnies  in  order  to 
blacken  them  and  make  out  that  they  are  enemies  of  pubhc 
order  and  tranquillity.  They  are  specially  accused  of  not 
respecting  the  Tsar  and  the  powers  which  be,  of  concealing 
fugutives  and  of  manufacturing  false  passports  and  money. 

As  to  the  last  accusation  they  do  not  deny  that  in  their  ranks 
may  be  found  swindlers  and  wrongdoers,  but  they  point  out 
that  they  are  also  met  with  in  other  confessions  in  as  large  a 
proportion.     But   their  religion,   far  from  encouraging  such 


THE  MOLOKANYE  293 

forms  of  villainy,  is  based  on  Christ's  teaching  which  condemns 
all  sorts  of  lying  and  deceit.  They  admit  fmthermore  that  in 
the  past  when  their  brethren  were  exposed  to  persecution  for 
their  steadfastness  in  the  true  faith,  they  concealed  their 
martyrs  and  put  them  out  of  danger;  but  they  never  hid  crimi- 
nals and  rogues,  nor  do  so  now.  On  the  contrary  they  follow 
the  Apostle's  precept  (Peter  ii,  13-14)  and  obey  the  Powers 
which  be.  In  matters  of  faith,  however,  they  submit  to  the 
Lord  God  alone.  In  particular  they  revere  Alexander  II  as  an 
inspired  monarch,  sent  from  God  to  heal  old  wounds  inflicted 
formerly  on  the  confessors  of  their  faith  and  later  on  them- 
selves. The  accession  of  this  Tsar,  they  say,  inaugurated  a 
new  era  for  themselves  and  for  all  Russia.  War  was  stopped, 
and  the  peasants  were  emancipated  from  the  yoke  of  a  sinful 
serfdom  which  contradicted  the  will  of  God  who  created  all 
men  in  his  image  and  Hkeness,  equals  and  brethren.  Their 
own  families  had  been  Uberated  from  recruiting  and  formed 
into  a  guild  with  provisional  laws;  their  wives  and  children 
were  legitimized,  where  before  they  were  held  illegitimate;  by 
the  laws  of  1858  they  were  freed  from  all  interference  on  the 
part  of  the  Greco-Russian  popes  with  their  religion;  finally 
by  the  circular  addressed  to  functionaries  in  1861  they  were  no 
longer  prevented  from  sending  their  children  to  any  schools 
they  Uked.  The  while  they  hail  these  reforms  with  gratitude, 
they  yet  complain  that  the  Law  subjects  them  to  certain  dis- 
abilities not  inflicted  on  other  subjects  of  the  Tsar,  and  they 
gave  the  following  instances. 

In  common  with  all  who  do  not  belong  to  the  orthodox 
Church,  they  are  subject  to  a  statute  of  1857,  No.  82,  to  the 
effect  that  all  Judaizing  sects,  Skoptsy,  Molokanye,  Dukho- 
bortsy  and  members  also  of  the  priestless  Raskol,  who  neither 
pray  for  the  Tsar  nor  accept  marriage,  and  are  therefore  to  be 
reckoned  peculiarly  noxious,  are  forbidden  to  receive  into  their 
famihes  under  any  pretext  whatever  persons  of  the  orthodox 
persuasion. 

By  Statute  83  they  are  forbidden  on  any  pretext  whatever  to 
have  in  their  houses,  fabrics  or  institutions  orthodox  persons 
as  servants  or  workmen;   nor  are  Molokanye  in  their  turn  to 


294  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

enter  theirs.  The  police  are  charged  to  see  to  the  carrjdng  out 
of  this  law  and  for  violation  of  it  to  inflict  the  penalties  laid 
down  in  Statute  307,  Ulozhenie.  A  note  or  gloss  on  this 
Statute  83  excepts  orthodox  persons,  original  inhabitants  of  the 
Trans-Caucasus,  from  its  operation,  and  it  is  only  Molokanye 
who  are  forbidden  to  receive  the  orthodox  Russian  inhabitants, 
to  live  \vith  them  or  be  their  servants.  By  Statute  84  local 
authorities,  so  far  as  possible,  are  to  prevent  Judaisers  from 
holding  intercourse  with  the  orthodox,  and  to  that  end  are  to 
refuse  to  any  infected  with  the  heresy  passports  allowing  them 
to  remove  to  other  districts.  This  restriction  applies  equally 
to  Skoptsy. 

In  the  circular  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  of  January  25, 
1836,  officials  were  warned  not  to  grant  passports  to  Molo- 
kanye lest  they  should  change  their  places  of  residence;  and  in 
another  of  January  23,  1839,  it  was  stated  that  'inasmuch  as 
certain  Molokanye  and  Dukhobortsy  of  the  Tauric  Government 
possessed  lands,  the  Governor  of  Novorossiisk  and  the  General 
Governor  of  Bessarabia  sought  advice  on  the  point  whether 
members  of  these  sects  could  own  land  acquired  by  piu-chase 
or  otherwise.  The  matter  was  referred  to  the  Emperor  who 
gave  instructions:  (1)  that  by  a  regulation  issued  January  17, 
1836,  it  was  laid  down  that  Molokanye  were  not  to  have  ortho- 
dox persons  in  their  houses,  etc.,  nor  to  be  given  passports; 
(2)  that,  since  passports  are  necessary  for  removal  to  any 
distance  exceeding  30  versts  (a  verst  =  a  kilometer),  in  order  to 
impede  the  diffusion  of  noxious  heresy,  the  adherents  of  these 
two  sects  shall  not  be  left  in  possession  of  lands  situated  more 
than  30  versts  from  their  residences,  nor  of  any  that  lie  in  more 
than  one  circumscription  or  Uyezd.  Accordingly  on  February 
17,  1839,  officials  of  Governments  in  which  these  sectaries  live 
were  secretly  instructed  to  adopt  the  above  rule  as  their  guide 
in  future,  but  those  already  owning  lands  beyond  the  pre- 
scribed radius  were  to  be  left  in  possession." 

In  addition  to  the  above  the  Molokanye  complain  that  they 
are  not  allowed  to  get  members  of  other  confessions  to  under- 
take military  service  as  substitutes  for  themselves  and  so  buy 
themselves  out. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  295 

Such  disabilities,  they  complain,  prejudice  them  in  their 
professions  and  trades,  and  deprive  them  of  opportimity  to 
earn  an  honest  liveUhood;  they  serve  no  useful  purpose  and  do 
enormous  harm  to  the  Government  by  depriving  it  of  the  sup- 
port it  should  find  in  truth  and  justice  and  in  equality  of  all 
and  each.  Deprived  of  such  support  all  its  strength  amounts 
merely  to  a  show  of  force,  and  by  this  very  fact  it  becomes  a 
complete  moral  failure. 

In  conclusion  they  express  their  conviction  that  the  Emperor 
Alexander  II  is  unaware  of  the  disabiUties  here  above  enumer- 
ated; for  a  sovereign  so  entirely  reasonable  and  devoted  to 
truth  and  justice,  as  his  solicitude  for  the  distribution  of  the 
Bible  as  a  'table'  book  and  for  its  translation  into  Russian 
evidences  him  to  be,  would,  they  feel  assured,  remedy  them  the 
moment  they  were  brought  to  his  notice.  They  particularly 
express  their  approval  of  the  new  translation  of  the  Bible  into 
modem  Russian,  in  which  the  Pentateuch  was  already  com- 
pleted. 

This  introduction  is  followed  by  an  expose  of  Molokan  doc- 
trine as  it  stood  in  1862  entitled  The  True  Christian  Teaching 
or  a  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  Spiritual  Christians,  presented  in 
the  form  of  a  conmientary  on  the  Ten  Commandments.  It 
begins  with  a  prayer:  "Instruct  us.  Thou  who  knowest  all, 
in  om-  labour,  to  the  end  that  we  may  in  no  wise  tarnish  before 
men  the  eternal  brightness  of  thy  name.  Help  us,  Almighty, 
to  teach  the  ignorant  thy  holy  truth,  that  they  may  recognize 
thy  love  and  worship  thee  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

The  commentary  on  the  first  commandment  sets  forth  the 
Divine  attributes  of  Spirit,  Truth,  Freedom,  Beauty,  Goodness, 
Love,  Power,  Life,  etc.  as  revealed  in  all  that  is  without  or 
within  us,  and  especially  in  the  human  soul  and  in  the  Bible. 

They  then  reject  the  traditional  Trinitarian  doctrine  and 
argue  that  the  text  Mt.  xxviii,  19,  is  wrongly  interpreted  by  the 
Greco-Russian  Chm-ch:  "Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit  are  no 
more  than  titles  of  God  which  mark  the  different  angles  or 
aspects  from  or  under  which  we  contemplate  him,  without  los- 
ing sight  of  his  unity  as  Creator  of  ourselves  and  of  the  earth, 
as  Life  and  Spirit  of  the  universe,  as  the  True  Spirit  by  which 


296  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

he  reveals  himself  to  us."  The  relationship  of  God  to  his 
creatures  is  exhibited  in  language  which  might  be  that  of  any 
educated  Anglican  or  Roman  divine,  and  a  section  follows 
directed  against  anthropolatry  or  the  cult  of  saints  and  arguing 
that  Christ's  own  disciples,  e.g.,  St.  Paul  and  Barnabas  at 
Lystra,  refused  to  be  worshipped. 

There  follows  a  less  commonplace  section  against  baptism 
with  water.  The  true  baptism  consists  of  instruction  in  the 
word  of  Gcd.  Baptism,  whether  by  immersion  or  aspersion,  is  a 
fond  thing  vainly  imagined  in  opposition  to  Christ's  own  prom- 
ise that,  whereas  John  only  baptized  with  water,  his  own  faith- 
ful should  after  not  many  days  be  baptized  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  (Acts  i,  5),  a  promise  fulfiUed  at  Pentecost.  They  also 
appeal  to  Lk.  iii,  16 :  'He  shall  baptize  you  in  the  Spirit,'  and  in 
Fire,  and  conclude  that  water  baptism  was  only  valid  before 
Christ's  advent;  that  it  was  not  an  apostolic  practice  they 
argue  from  Paul's  declaration  that  Christ  sent  him  not  to  bap- 
tize, and  that  in  baptism  we  share  his  death.  The  passage 
Rem.  vi.  3-13  refers,  not  to  baptism  of  the  flesh  but  of  the  spirit. 
In  John  iii,  5  the  words  horn  of  water  were  not  intended  literally 
and  in  Mt.  xxviii,  19  the  instruction  to  baptize  etc.,  is  epexe- 
getic  of  the  phrase  'make  disciples  of  all  nations.' 

In  this  repudiation  of  water  baptism  the  Molokanye  agree 
with  the  Dukhobortsy,  and,  hke  them,  exhibit  the  ancient 
tradition  of  Cathar  and  Marcionite  Christianity. 

Under  the  rubric  of  the  second  commandment  the  worship 
of  ikons  is  condemned.  The  contention  of  the  Orthodox  that 
the  faithful  bows  not  to  the  ikon  but  to  the  saint  depicted 
therein,  is  met  with  the  reply  that  God  alone  should  be  wor- 
shipped and  that  he  cannot  be  represented  in  any  picture. 
They  argue  that  the  faithful  really  worship  the  particular  ikon. 
Else,  why  carry  it  about  from  chiu-ch  to  church?  Why  ascribe 
miracles  to  it?  Why  burn  lamps  before  it?  Why,  if  it  be  the 
saint  that  is  adored  and  not  the  wood,  pretend  that  one  image 
fell  from  heaven  and  was  not  made  with  hands,  whereas  another 
not?  Why  as  a  rule  prefer  the  smoky  greasy  boards  whereon 
nothing  is  decipherable  to  those  on  which  the  saint's  image  is 
new  and  fresh?     Does  not  the  most  popular  image  of  the  Virgin 


THE  MOLOKANYE  297 

depict  her  with  three  hands?  Has  not  each  village  and  city 
its  special  idol?  Was  anyone  ever  deterred  from  sin  by  such 
idol  worship?  Do  not  those  who  prostrate  themselves  before 
them  know  that  an  idol  cannot  punish  them  for  their  iniquities? 
They  know  not  the  true  God  who  can,  and  worship  a  wooden 
one  who  does  inspire  no  fear.  As  for  ikon's  'not  made  with 
hands/  is  God  a  man,  first  to  forbid  us  to  worship  images  and 
then  set  to  manufacturing  them  for  our  cult?  Rehcs  are 
equally  condemned.  Old  bones  are  no  substitute  as  an  object 
of  worship  for  Spirit.  A  man's  spirit,  not  his  flesh  and  bones, 
is  the  image  and  hkeness  of  God.  No  doubt  that  is  the  reason 
why  the  Molokanye  in  worship  bow  to  those  among  themselves 
who  are  filled  with  the  Spirit  and  are  hterally  Christs.  Id 
doing  so  they  again  adhere  to  the  custom  of  the  Cathars.  To 
this  practice  however  there  is  no  reference  in  this  tract  save  in 
the  Introduction,  wherein  it  is  said  that  the  vulgar,  not  under- 
standing the  reason,  nicknamed  them  Chinkers. 

Interpreting  the  third  commandment  they  forbid  oaths; 
and  they  inculcate  observance  of  the  fourth,  insisting  how- 
ever that  in  Christendom  the  holiness  of  the  Sabbath  has  been 
transferred  to  the  Lord's  Day.  Following  Mt.  xii  1-13,  they 
insist  on  the  necessity  of  good  works  on  the  Sabbath,  that  is  on 
Sunday,  and  regret  the  license,  frivoUties  and  drunkenness  with 
which  the  Orthodox  violate  the  day.  They  admit  as  worthy 
to  be  observed  in  addition  to  the  Sunday  the  Dominical  feasts 
of  Annunciation,  Nativity,  Purification,  Baptism,  Transfigura- 
tion, Resurrection,  Ascension,  and  Descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Other  festivals  they  ignore,  as  being  days  consecrated  to  trivial 
events  of  no  special  holiness.  Good  Friday  they  observe  as  a 
Fast,  eating  nothing  that  day  and  only  praying  on  it.  They 
hold  a  Fast  day  to  be  not  one  on  which  you  stuff  your  belly 
with  fish  and  fungi,  but  one  of  complete  abstention  from  food 
of  all  kinds;  the  distinction  between  one  diet  and  another  was 
only  made  by  the  Orthodox.  All  food  was  given  by  God  and 
one  food  is  as  good  as  another.  In  any  case  fasts  in  themselves 
are  valueless  unless  they  are  observed  as  an  aid  to  the  formation 
of  good  character  and  to  holiness  of  fife. 

In  connection  with  the  fifth  commandment  the  duty  of  chil- 


298  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

dren  to  their  parents  is  illustrated  from  many  passages  in  the 
Bible,  and  it  is  also  urged  that  parents  in  their  turn  owe  it  to 
their  children  to  win  their  loving  obedience  and  respect  by 
their  soUcitude  and  self-denial  in  behalf  of  them. 

The  reason  of  the  sixth  commandment  is  declared  to  be 
that  man  is  the  image  and  Ukeness  of  God,  wherefore  murder  is 
a  violation  and  diminution  of  the  divine  glory.  Only  God  has  a 
right  to  kill.  Men  are  all  brethren  in  Christ  and  the  brand  of 
Cain  is  on  the  brow  of  him  that  slays  his  brother.  The  Molo- 
kan  acceptance  of  the  Old  Testament  necessitates  a  somewhat 
tortuous  interpretation  of  the  Hebrew  God's  instructions  to 
his  people  to  slay  unoffending  Amalekites  and  others  whose 
lands  they  coveted.  But  the  expositor  is  quite  sure  that  no 
man  has  a  right  to  say  to  his  fellow :  '  You  must  die,  you  deserve 
death.'  Nor  can  murder  be  justified  by  the  plea:  'I  slew  him 
to  save  my  own  life  and  property,'  for  Jesus  forbade  his  disciples 
to  protect  him  by  force  of  arms;  still  less  is  murder  justifiable 
on  the  ground  that  the  murdered  man  was  a  foreigner  or  an 
infidel.  Even  if  it  can  be  urged  that  Jehovah  permitted  the 
Jews  to  slay  their  enemies,  Jesus  Christ  anyhow  bade  us  love 
our  enemies. 

The  Molokanye  have  ever  been  classed  a  dangerous  sect  by 
the  Russian  Government,  and  that  is  perhaps  the  reason  why 
in  their  manifesto  the  Molokanye  append  to  their  conomentary 
on  the  seventh  commandment  a  special  disquisition  upon  mar- 
riage. It  was  ordained  by  God  in  the  Garden,  and  it  is  an 
union  not  of  body  with  body  so  much  as  of  soul  with  soul  and 
spirit  with  spirit,  a  fleshly  union  indeed  for  the  multiphcation 
and  increase  of  mankind,  but  also  an  association  for  mutual 
aid  and  counsel  and  comfort.  Divorce  is  forbidden  except  in 
case  of  adultery;  but  second  marriage  after  the  death  of  one 
of  the  parties  is  permissible.  The  prayers  and  lections  of 
Scripture  with  which  the  sect  celebrates  matrimony  are  given 
in  full.  In  these  the  bride  and  bridegroom  pledge  each  other 
to  perpetual  fidehty  throughout  life,  and  the  parents  on  each 
side  must  be  present  and  give  their  blessing  to  the  union  before 
God  and  the  faithful  meet  to  attest  it.  The  prayers  to  heaven 
and  the  angels  to  protect  the  newly-married  couple  and  lead 


THE  MOLOKANYE  299 

them  in  the  path  of  peace,  goodness  and  conjugal  harmony  are 
not  surpassed  for  simple  eloquence  and  fervour  by  those  of 
any  church.  There  is  no  crowning  of  the  couple  as  in  the 
orthodox  rite,  which  is  declared  to  be  unscriptural  and  invalid. 

This  is  followed  by  a  section  repudiating  the  mutilators  or 
Skoptsy,  who  make  themselves  eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Their  interpretation  of  the  text  Mt.  xix,  12  is  rejected 
and  it  is  argued,  as  by  orthodox  exegetes  in  general,  that  it 
should  be  interpreted  allegorically  and  was  intended  to  be  so 
interpreted,  for  otherwise  both  Christ  and  his  Apostles  must 
have  emasculated  themselves,  which  they  did  not. 

They  condemn  monkery  mainly  because  of  the  drunken  and 
vicious  and  idle  lives  led  by  monks,  and  object  to  permanent 
vows,  though  they  admit  the  expediency  of  St.  Paul's  advice 
that  at  times  man  and  wife  should  keep  apart  for  prayer  and 
rehgious  meditation. 

The  comment  on  the  eighth  commandment  consists  wholly 
of  Scripture  passages  nor  does  the  treatment  of  the  last  two 
call  for  notice.  The  concluding  section  however  of  the  tract 
is  devoted  to  the  Church  and  is  most  characteristic.  It  begins 
by  insisting  that  it  is  the  community  of  the  faithful  who  accept 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  his  Apostles,  and  appeals  to  such  texts 
as  I  Cor.  iii,  16 :  "Know  you  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God 
and  the  Spirit  of  God  liveth  in  you,"  and  I  Cor.  vi,  19:  "Know 
ye  not  that  your  members  are  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit  dwel- 
Ung  within  you,  which  ye  have  from  God."  Inspired  with  such 
sentiments  the  Molokanye  deny  that  any  sanctity  attaches  to 
buildings,  altars,  altar  furniture,  Antiminsia,  ikons,  relics  and 
the  Hke."  What  connection,  they  ask,  can  there  be  between 
a  temple  of  God  and  idols?  "For  ye,  the  Apostle  said  (II  Cor. 
vi,  16),  are  a  temple  of  the  Hving  God,  as  God  hath  declared 
saying :  I  will  dwell  in  them  and  will  walk  up  and  down  in  them, 
and  I  will  be  their  God  and  they  shall  be  my  people."  Is  not 
the  Russo-Greek  Church  teaching  about  the  temple  a  destruc- 
tion of  the  temple  of  God?  The  founder  and  head  of  the 
Church  is  Jesus  Christ  himself:  "When  two  or  three  are 
gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in  their  midst." 
(Mt.  xviii  20).     "And  I  will  ask  the  Father,  and  he  will  give 


300  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

you  another  Consoler  and  he  shall  abide  with  you  for  ever." 
In  this  context  Acts  ii,  1,  2,  4,  is  also  cited  along  with  Eph.  v, 
26-7;  I  Peter  ii,  4-5;  I  Cor.  xii,  12,  27;  Eph.  ii,  19-22;  I  Cor. 
iii,  11;  Eph.  iv,  4-6.  Fortified  with  such  texts  they  deny  the 
Greco-Russian  or  the  Old  Ritualists,  or  the  Western  Church 
to  be  the  true  Church.  These  so-called  Churches  are  in  con- 
flict with  the  Teaching  and  have  thus  cut  themselves  off  from 
Christ. 

From  many  passages  of  the  New  Testament,  e.g.,  Hebrews 
iv,  15;  viii,  1;  vii,  23-27;  v,  4-6,  it  is  argued  that  we  can  have 
no  High  priest  save  Jesus  Christ  alone,  and  that  it  is  vain  for 
the  orthodox  Churches  to  entitle  men  such.  There  is  one 
priest,  who  is  our  Lord. 

The  tract  then  describes  the  Molokan  cult.  It  includes  (1) 
reading  of  Scripture  with,  occasionally,  interpretation  of  it  to 
those  who  do  not  clearly  comprehend  its  drift;  (2)  singing  of 
the  Psalms  and  other  canticles  from  Scripture;  (3)  Prayer, 
answering  to  the  precept  laid  down  in  Cor.  iii,  16. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  theMolokanye  dispense  with 
organization  in  their  Church.  On  the  contrary  in  each  locality 
to  supervise  their  affairs  and  to  lead  their  services  they  elect  a 
presbyter  or  bishop,  that  is  a  supervisor;  for  after  the  manner 
of  the  earliest  Church  they  make  no  distinction  between  a 
presbyter  or  elder  and  a  bishop.  Their  bishop  has  two  coadju- 
tors, who  in  case  he  is  sick  or  absent,  take  his  place.  He  is 
chosen  in  accordance  with  the  rules  laid  down  in  Tim.  iii,  2-5. 
They  have  no  deacons.  These,  they  say,  were  necessary  in  the 
early  Church  for  the  keeping  of  good  order.  If  they  foimd 
them  essential  to  the  extension  of  their  Church,  the  Molokanye 
would  elect  them,  but  so  far  they  have  found  no  use  for  them. 

The  duties  of  a  bishop  are  those  prescribed  in  I  Peter  v.  1-3. 
He  receives  no  salary  as  do  the  popes  of  the  orthodox  Church, 
who  exact  payment  from  their  faithful  for  every  prayer  they 
repeat,  forgetting  that  Jesus  asked  nothing  when  he  suffered 
and  shed  his  blood  in  our  behoof. 

The  Molokanye  scrupulously  disclaim  any  sacerdotaUsm. 
Their  presbyters  or  bishops  are  the  equals  only  of  the  rest  of 
the  congregation,  according  to  the  precepts  Mt.  xxiii,  8,  10. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  301 

In  their  Church  there  are  no  Greater  ones,  no  Lesser  ones,  all 
are  equal  as  brethren  met  together  before  God.  One  authority- 
only  they  possess  and  recognize,  to  wit,  Jesus  Christ;  and  there- 
fore they  are  the  true  Church.  The  presbyter  may  be  deprived 
if  he  offends  against  the  rules  set  out  in  Tim.  iii,  2-5. 

They  have  no  buildings  reserved  for  reHgious  service,  and 
hold  that  prayer  hallows  the  building,  and  not  the  building  the 
prayers  offered  in  it;  because  God  lives  not  in  temples  made 
with  hands,  and  the  hour  is  with  us,  when  true  worshippers 
must  worship  in  Spirit  and  in  Truth.  They  argue  that  the 
earliest  Christians  similarly  met  for  prayer  in  private  houses. 

They  reject  utterly  the  doctrine  of  the  Sacrament  which  has 
been  elaborated  in  the  great  Churches  of  East  and  West,  and 
to  understand  their  objection  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  in  the 
East  the  word  for  Sacrament  (a  Latin  word)  is  mystery  or 
secret  cult,  the  entire  doctrine  of  which  was  taken  over  by  the 
early  Churches  of  the  East  from  the  old  Greek  mysteries  and 
clothed  with  their  paraphernalia.  They  hold  that  the  recita- 
tion, standing,  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  followed  by  the  reading 
and  exposition  (if  needful)  of  the  Scriptures  (the  congregation 
sitting  down)  and  by  prayers  with  genuflexion  —  this  service  in 
itself  constitutes  communion  in  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  evidence  thereof  they  appeal  to  such  texts  as 
John  vi,  47-51;  53,  60-63.  The  fleshly  communion  which 
consists  in  consumption  of  material  bread  and  wine,  which 
being  swallowed  passes  into  the  stomach  to  be  evacuated  (Mt. 
XV,  17)  is  a  vain  thing  falsely  imagined.  Neither  if  we  eat  it, 
do  we  abound  in  grace,  nor  if  we  do  not,  lack  the  same  (I  Cor. 
viii,  8).  The  only  true  communion  is  in  the  Word  of  God. 
The  vulgar  Church  teaching  about  the  matter  insults  the  body 
and  blood  given  and  shed  for  our  instruction  and  salvation  by 
Jesus. 

The  recital  and  intoning  of  Scripture  in  their  divine  service 
may  last  some  hours  and  is  followed  by  prayers  in  a  kneeUng 
posture  according  to  the  example  of  Jesus  in  Lk.  xx,  41  and  of 
the  early  saints  in  Acts  xx,  36.  They  do  not  cross  their 
persons,  for  to  do  so  is  vain  and  superfluous  for  those  who  carry 
in  their  hearts  the  passion  and  cross  of  the  Saviour;   nor  is  it 


302  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

anywhere  prescribed  in  Scripture.     The  prayers  recited  by  the 
Presbyter  are  given  in  full.     The  first  begins  thus : — 

"Protect  us,  Lord,  from  the  dwelling-place  of  thy  Holiness. 
Accept  our  prayers  for  all  men,  for  the  King  and  for  all  in 
authority,  to  the  end  that  we  may  live  a  life  quiet  and  free 
from  turbulence  in  all  piety  and  purity.  For  this  is  acceptable 
before  our  Saviour,  God,  who  desire th  all  men  to  be  saved  and 
to  receive  the  Truth  with  understanding.  Look  mercifully 
and  with  favour.  Lord,  upon  our  offering,  as  thou  didst  on  the 
sacrifice  of  Abel;  accept  our  devotion  as  thou  didst  Enoch's; 
preserve  us  from  a  flood  of  vain  imaginings,  as  thou  didst  Noe; 
save  us  from  fire  and  brimstone,  as  thou  didst  Lot  from  Sodom; 
and  enlighten  us,  as  thou  didst  Abraham,  our  father,  with  thy 
Holy  Spirit". .  .  At  the  end  they  pray  that  "our  bountiful 
mother  Wisdom"  may  come  unto  them,  an  antique  touch 
reminding  us  of  "Our  Mother  the  Holy  Spirit"  in  Aphraates. 

This  prayer  is  followed  by  Psalm  50:  "Have  mercy  on  me," 
then  a  prayer  which  begins:  "To-day  we  glorify  thee.  Lord, 
and  bend  our  knee  before  thee  our  Lord  and  Creator,  and  mag- 
nify thy  holy  Name,  and  exalt  the  fleshless  host  of  thy  Angels 
and  Archangels,  Cherubim  and  Seraphim,  and  we  follow  the 
Holy  Prophets  and  Apostles  and  Martyrs  and  thy  Elect  ones; 
for  thou  hast  designed.  Lord,  that  we  should  call  upon  thy  all 
serene  and  sanctified  holy  Name.  Now  therefore  make  us,  thy 
young  men  and  women,  worthy  to  dwell  with  thyself  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  for  ever  and  ever." 

There  follows  Psalm  26:  "Lord  our  Illumination,"  and  a 
prayer: —  "To  thee,  Lord,  we  bend  our  knees,  who  createdst 
heaven  and  earth.  Lord,  remit  all  our  sins.  Shelter  us  under 
the  shadow  of  thy  wings  from  the  fury  of  the  enemy.  Lord, 
deliver  us,  thy  young  men  and  maidens,  from  eternal  torment; 
save  us  with  salvation  eternal;  Lord,  sanctify  us  in  presence 
of  all  nations,  for  thou  hast  loved  thy  saints.     Amen." 

There  follows  Psalm  85:  "Incline  thine  ear  0  Lord,"  and  a 
long  prayer  beginning:  "Blessed  art  thou.  Lord  our  God,  and 
blessed  is  thy  holy  name  for  ever.  .  .  "  a  prayer  for  replenish- 
ment and  illumination  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  After  it  they  sing 
Psalm  114:    "I  delighted  that  the  Lord  hearkened  unto  the 


THE  MOLOKANYE  303 

voice  of  my  prayer."  Then  a  long  prayer  beginning:  "Lord, 
God  of  Heaven,  Mighty,  Powerful  and  Terrible,  observe  thy 
promise  and  be  merciful  to  those  who  love  thee  and  keep  thy 
conmiandments  . .  .  and  now,  Lord  raise  thy  almighty  hand  and 
extend  it  from  on  high  from  thy  throne,  and  gather  together 
all  who  are  thy  chosen  in  the  unity  of  faith.  Raise,  Lord, 
around  them  a  rampart  of  awe  hke  a  wall  of  fire,"  etc. 

Psalm  140  is  next  sung:  "Lord  I  called  unto  thee,"  followed 
by  a  brief  but  characteristic  prayer:  "Lord,  make  us  worthy, 
thy  sons  and  daughters,  to  stand  in  thine  image  and  make  us, 
Lord,  to  resemble  thy  rubies;  choose  us.  Lord,  for  thy  founda- 
tions, as  if  we  were  sapphires;  uphold  us  and  strengthen  us  in 
thy  sight  as  if  jasper;  and  cleanse  and  purify  us  as  crystals. 
Teach  us.  Lord,  by  thy  Holy  Spirit,  and  save,  our  Saviour, 
our  souls  henceforth  and  for  ever." 

Next  is  sung  Psalm  87:  "Lord,  God  of  my  salvation"  fol- 
lowed by  the  Prayer  of  Manasses  and  the  Psalm:  "Lord,  in 
thy  wrath,  deny  me  not." 

The  above  service  of  prayer  and  praise  is  followed  by  a  love 
feast,  a  "brotherly  irapeza,"  devoid  of  sacramental  significance. 
In  it  they  do  but  satiate  their  hunger,  first  thanking  God  for 
the  food  he  gives  them.  It  is  no  part  of  the  ser\ace  and  can  be 
dispensed  with  as  well  as  not.  On  the  anniversary  of  the  Last 
Supper  they  meet,  and  breaking  bread,  eat  it  in  memory  of  the 
Lord,  holding  withal  holy  conversation  one  with  the  other; 
but  this  meal  is  not  a  sacrament  in  the  sense  of  an  arcane 
mystery.  On  the  contrary  they  reject  all  such  mysteries, 
because  Jesus  Christ  at  his  advent  revealed  all  mysteries  as  is 
attested  in  Mt.  xiii,  11  and  Eph.  iii,  4-5  and  8-10.  The 
mysteries  of  the  Orthodox  are  idle  trifling,  since  it  is  the  duty 
of  Christians  to  reveal  divine  truth  to  all  as  the  only  means  to 
salvation,  and  not  keep  it  secret  and  make  a  mystery  of  it,  as 
the  Russo-Greek  popes  do,  who  hide  away  under  superstitious 
rites  the  truth  that  man  is  a  temple  of  God  in  whom  dwells  the 
Divine  Spirit,  and  that  all  commandments  are  included  in  the 
one  precept  to  love  one's  neighbour  as  oneself,  seeing  that  God 
is  our  Father  and  men  are  sons  of  God.  This  truth  lies  open  to 
all  in  the  New  Testament;    no  other  mystery  was  revealed 


304  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

to  US  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  that  acknowledges  it,  shall  Uve 
for  ever.  No  rites  are  to  be  performed,  no  incense  burned,  no 
water  sprinkled,  no  tapers  lit.  If  the  Molokanye,  when  they 
assemble  at  eventide  Hght  candles,  it  is  only  in  order  to  Ught 
up  their  chamber.  Do  the  popes  imagine  that  the  candles 
which  their  faithful  light,  when  they  enter  their  churches,  in 
any  way  open  their  eyes  to  the  Truth  of  God?  Were  it  not 
better  if  they  explained  the  Gospel  to  them  and  enlightened 
their  understanding? 

The  presbyter  of  the  Molokanye  wears  no  special  vestments, 
but  leads  their  prayers  attired  in  his  ordinary  garb ;  the  ortho- 
dox contention  that  the  Apostles  dressed  up  is  false. ^ 

Members  of  the  sect  believe  in  the  future  Ufe,  and  when  the 
spirit  quits  the  body  they  offer  prayer  and  sing  Psalms  23  and 
145;  and  before  the  open  grave  Psalm  83.  Then  follow  Acts 
viii,  2,  and  Jesus  Sirach  xxxviii,  16,  17,  22.  In  the  faith  that 
the  dead  rise  again,  they  pray  that  their  sins  may  be  forgiven 
in  the  spirit  of  II  Mac.  xii,  44-46.  The  tract  ends  with  attes- 
tations from  Scripture  of  the  future  life,  e.g.,  Mark  xii,  26,  27; 
II  Cor.  V,  1;  Isaiah  Iv,  17-18;  Mt.  xxiv,  30;  John  v.  28-9; 
Rev.  XX,  12-15,  xxi,  1-5. 

The  accounts  of  Uzov,  Stollov  and  Kostomarov 

This  account,  given  by  the  Molokanye  of  themselves  and 
their  religion  in  1862,  harmonizes  with  that  of  Uzov,  who, 
following  Stollov 's  articles  in  the  National  Memorials  {Otetch. 
Zap.)  of  1870,  No.  6,  relates  that  they  denominate  themselves 
the  truly  spiritual  Christians,  in  contrast  with  all  others  whom 
they  call  'the  worldly.'  They  are  an  offshoot  of  the  Duk- 
hobortsy,  according  to  this  authority,  and  were  accounted  one 
sect  with  them  until  1823,  when  they  parted  company  with 
them  in  certain  matters  of  doctrine.  In  particular  they  are 
closer  to  the  Orthodox.  The  common  people  still  in  1870 
identified  them  with  the  Dukhobortsy.  Some  aver  that  they 
split  off  from  the  latter  about  1780.  Stollov  states  that  the 
M  olokanye  date  their  rise  in  the  reign  of  Alexis  Michailovich, 

1  Livanov  in  Vol.  I  of  his  Raskolniki,  St.  Petersburg  1872,  pp.  446-459,  prints 
an  order  of  common  prayer  in  use  among  the  Molokanye. 


THE  MOLOK\NYE  305 

and  that  they  were  then  called  or  called  themselves  Duk- 
hobortsy.  This  title  translates  the  Greek  pneumatomachos,  a 
term  of  abuse  leveled  in  the  IVth  Century  at  the  Semi-Arian 
theologians  who  scrupled  to  set  the  Holy  Spirit  on  a  level  of 
complete  equality  with  the  Father  and  Son  in  the  Trinitarian 
scheme  of  dogma.  It  is  probable  that  orthodox  Russian  doc- 
tors used  it  in  an  equally  derogatory  sense  of  the  ancestors  of 
the  Molokanye,  who,  as  we  saw  above,  adopted  it  of  themselves, 
but  interpreting  it  to  mean  not  those  who  wrestle  against  the 
Spirit,  but  in  whom  the  Spirit  wrestles  against  the  world,  the 
flesh  and  the  devil.  Stollov  also  regards  Matthew  Semenov 
as  their  founder,  and  he  has  been  plausibly  identified  by 
Kostomarov  in  an  article  in  the  same  review  (1889,  No.  3, 
p.  78)  with  Bashkin  who  was  condemned  at  Moscow  in  1555. 
The  chief  author,  however,  of  the  separation  of  the  Molokanye 
from  the  older  sect  was  Semen  Uklein  about  1780,  son-in-law 
of  the  well-known  teacher  Hilarion  Pobirokhin ;  and  his  mem- 
ory is  cherished  by  the  Molokanye,  as  we  saw  in  their  own  tract, 
which  fails  to  acquaint  us  with  the  fact  that  over  two  hundred 
years  transpired  between  Matthew  Semenov  and  Semen 
Uklein.  The  latter's  propaganda  attracted,  says  Stollov,  the 
orthodox  as  well  as  the  Dukhobortsy,  and  he  began  in  Tambov 
and  passed  thence  to  the  Voronezh  and  Saratov  governments. 
The  success  of  his  preaching  exposed  him  to  the  reprisals  of  the 
State,  and  I.  V.  Lopukhin  (in  the  Transactions  of  the  Imp. 
Society  of  Hist,  and  Antiquity,  1860,  bk.  3,  p.  110)  records  that 
his  followers  underwent  various  tortures  and  were  condemned 
to  hard  labour  and  the  crudest  imprisonment  in  cells  so  small 
that  they  could  neither  stand  upright  in  them  or  lie  down  at 
full  length.  They  did  but  increase  the  more  in  number,  and 
information  collected  by  the  State  in  the  years  1842-6  shewed 
that  there  were  200,000  of  them  in  the  Tambov  Government 
alone. 

In  1880  those  of  the  Don  differed  somewhat  from  the  other 
two  main  divisions  in  Tambov  and  Vladimir  (who  still  closely 
adhered  to  the  teaching  of  Semen  Uklein)  in  poUtical  and  reli- 
gious views.  Those  of  the  Don  called  themselves  'Evangelical 
Christians.' 


306  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Uzov's  outline  of  the  common  teaching  of  all  three  of  these 
divisions,  which  he  bases  on  Stollov  and  Kostomarov,  agrees 
well  enough  with  the  Molokan  tract.  There  is  the  Trinity  in 
three  persons,  and  Scripture  as  the  sole  source  of  doctrine.  As 
compared  with  the  Gospel,  Christology,  they  held,  was  of  little 
importance;  and  a  man  may  allegorize  away  the  historical 
Christ  altogether,  if  he  likes,  provided  he  practises  the  moral 
teaching,  which  is  very  much  what  Marcion  did.  In  any  case 
the  letter  of  Scripture  must  not  be  insisted  on  to  the  detriment 
of  the  spirit.  They  deny  none  of  the  events  narrated  in  the 
Gospels,  but  admit  a  man's  right  to  find  a  higher  moral  mean- 
ing in  them.  Holy  Writ  is  anyhow  the  source  of  moral  perfec- 
tion, and  such  perfection  is  attained  by  anyone  who  adopts  it 
as  his  rule  of  life.  "The  letter  killeth,  the  Spirit  giveth  Ufe," 
say  they.  It  is  no  use  to  believe  what  is  recorded  of  Jesus, 
unless  you  practise  what  he  preached. 

"During  his  life  onearth,"  according  to  the  Molokanye,  "Christ 
founded  the  Church;  at  first  it  consisted  of  the  Apostles  and 
later  on  of  all  who  beUeved  in  him.  But  the  true  Christian 
Chiu-ch  only  endiu-ed  down  to  the  IVth  Century,  when  the 
ecumenical  councils  and  the  teachers  of  the  Church  by  their 
arbitrary  interpretations  of  the  Bible  perverted  the  reUgion  and 
imported  into  it  pagan  beUefs  and  rites.  To-day  the  real 
Church  consists  exclusively  of  the  truly  spiritual  Christians, 
who  repudiate  the  traditions  and  canons  of  the  doctors  by  which 
the  conciUar  Church  sets  store,  and  profess  what  the  Gospel 
teaches  and  no  more."  ^ 

For  this  reason  they  "condemn  as  vain  and  fanciful  the 
Church  teaching  about  Sacraments  and  deny  it  to  be  based  on 
God's  word."  ^ 

"Consider,"  they  say  to  the  Orthodox,  "who  invented  your 
Church  rites  and  canons  and  why.  They  were  devised  by  your 
popes  for  their  own  gain."  ^  In  the  opinion  of  the  Molokanye 
"the  sacrament  of  Christian  regeneration  must  be  understood 

>  Stollov,  Nat.  Records,  1870,  p.  300. 

«  Orth.  Review,  {Pravosl.  Ohozr.)  1867,  t.  1,  art.  by  Z.,  p.  327. 
'  Varadinov,  Hist.  Min.  Vnvir.  Diel  (Hist,  of  Ministry  of  the  Interior),  t,  viii, 
p.  617. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  307 

spiritually."  ^  Accordingly  baptism  consists  in  the  good  tidings 
of  Christ's  teaching,  and  is  the  spiritual  cleansing  from  sin 
along  with  beUef  in  the  three  hypotheses  or  persons  of  God, 
the  mortification  of  the  old  man  and  his  conversion  to  a  life  of 
faith  without  stain  .^ 

"Water  baptism,"  remarks  Kostomarov  in  the  same  journal 
(1869,  No.  3,  p.  69),  "has  no  virtue  in  their  opinion;  instruc- 
tion they  say  is  what  is  wanted  and  a  hold  upon  the  teaching." 
Communion  equally  consists  in  "study  of  the  divine  utterances 
and  in  the  fulfilment  and  keeping  of  the  commandments; 
repentance  or  penitence  must  be  undergone  immediately  in  the 
presence  of  God  himself,  and  last  unction  consists  in  earnest 
prayer  on  the  part  of  the  faithful  and  the  sick. 

Marriage  is  no  sacrament.  Kostomarov  remarks  that  in 
proof  of  the  fact  that  its  essence  is  love  and  accord  rather  than 
ritual,  they  ask  whether  evil  relations  between  husband  and 
wife  can  be  hallowed  by  the  circumstance  that  they  were 
crowned.  If  they  give  notice  that  they  are  going  to  live 
together  and  begin  to  do  so  in  harmony  and  honestly, —  is 
their  joint  life  any  less  pleasing  to  God  than  that  of  two  people 
who,  after  being  crowned  in  church,  straightway  begin  to 
quarrel,  lose  their  mutual  confidence  and  deceive  each  other? 
By  his  account  their  marriage  is  even  simpler  than  that  we  have 
taken  from  their  Geneva  tract.  The  young  man,  he  says, 
makes  his  proposal  to  the  girl  and  obtains  her  assent.  He  then 
asks  the  parents  for  their  blessing  and  they  repair,  as  agreed 
upon,  to  the  home  of  one  or  the  other;  here  witnesses  are  sum- 
moned before  whom  they  receive  the  mutual  blessings  of  the 
parents  of  both  parties  and  the  marriage  is  finished.  Nuptial 
ceremonies  there  are  none.  According  to  Stollov,  however, 
the  father  leads  his  daughter  by  hand,  and  in  giving  her  away 
to  the  husband  says:  Here  I  give  thee  my  daughter  to  wife 
according  to  God's  law,  take  her  away  with  thee  to  thy  father's 
house.  The  Elder  {or  rector)  reads  passages  of  Holy  Scripture 
bearing  on  wedlock,  they  sing  divers  psalms,  and  the  marriage 
concludes,   with  the  bridegroom  embracing  the  bride  amid 

1  Orth.  Rev.  1867,  t.  1,  art.  by  Z.,  p.  328. 

2  Nat.  Records,  1870,  No.  6,  art.  by  Stollov. 


308  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

felicitations  on  their  lawful  wedlock.  Divorce/  adds  another 
observer,  is  allowed;  but  only  after  it  has  first  been  decided,  as 
it  were,  in  formal  debate  who  was  to  blame  for  the  domestic 
quarrel  and  what  was  the  cause.  After  hearing  the  complaint 
made  by  the  injured  party  and  the  defence  of  the  accused,  the 
'Elder'  proceeds  to  read  out  bibhcal  texts  relative  to  family 
Ufe  and  conjugal  fidelity.  "A  husband  should  love  his  wife  as 
our  Lord  loved  his  Church,"  says  the  Elder.  Does  then  Christ 
wound  and  injure  his  Church?  The  union  of  a  man  and  wife 
must  be  one  of  love,  a  spiritual  union.  He  who  loves  his  wife, 
loves  himself;  wherefore  a  man  sins  against  the  Lord's  com- 
mandment who  treats  his  wife  harshly  by  word  or  deed.  For 
what  love  or  harmony  can  there  be  between  people  who  quarrel? 
Without  it  a  wife  can  be  no  helpmate  to  her  husband,  as  our 
Lord  himself  attested,  but  only  a  slave  for  carnal  cohabitation, 
degraded  thereby  to  the  level  of  a  brute  without  reason,  the 
spirit  and  image  of  God  in  her  lost  and  dishonoured.  Unless 
there  be  the  Unk  of  affection  to  unite  them  their  union  is  forni- 
cation and  adultery.  Another  authority,  V.  Mainov,  (in 
Znanie,  'Knowledge,'  1874,  No.  3),  cites  a  definition  of  the 
conjugal  relation  from  the  'Faith  and  Doctrine  of  the  Molo- 
kani,'  as  follows:  ''  Among  us  a  woman  is  not  a  beast  of  burden, 
but  a  helpmate  and  standby,  a  friend  and  companion  in  this 
vale  of  misery." 

In  the  Caucasus  I  have  passed  through  many  Molokan  vil- 
lages in  early  spring  and  in  late  autumn.  Their  dwelUngs  were 
usually  of  wood,  but  sometimes  of  stone,  often  built  in  gardens 
surrounded  by  walls.  Everything  was  neat  and  clean,  and 
everywhere  prevailed  an  air  of  sobriety  and  quiet  industry. 
It  was  a  pleasure  to  see  the  stalwart  tidy  wives  sitting  outside 
their  houses  in  the  sun,  working  at  their  sewing,  the  snow  still 
around  their  feet  at  the  close  of  winter,  which  in  the  highlands 
between  Tiflis  and  Erivan  is  very  severe. 

Stollov  describes  the  Molokan  funeral.  The  'Elders'  or 
Rectors  read  over  the  grave  certain  prayers  and  sing  Psalms; 
after  which  all  present,  or  at  least  the  older  ones,  are  invited  to 

^  Nicolas  Popov,  "  Materials  for  the  history  of  the  Priestless  Communions  in 
Moscow,"  p.  150. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  309 

the  house  of  the  deceased  person's  parents  where  prayer  is 
raised  to  God,  while  all  partake  of  bread  and  salt,  and  offer 
vows  for  the  entrance  of  the  dead  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
and  for  the  happiness  of  the  survivors. 

The  same  author  testifies  to  the  Molokan  rejection  of  exter- 
nal ritual  and  rehgious  gestures,  as  well  as  of  the  invocation  of 
the  Virgin  and  Saints.  A  writer  in  the  Orthodox  Review 
{Pravosl  Obozr.  1867,  t.  1,  p.  327)  dwells  on  the  absence  among 
them  of  a  true  hierarchy.  Every  man  is  a  priest;  their  Elders 
are  no  more  than  rectors  chosen  by  the  community  and  possess 
no  superior  sanctity.  Christ  did  not  choose  his  Apostles  from 
among  the  Levites  or  priests  nor  consecrate  them  to  be  such; 
nor  are  priests  any  nearer  to  God  than  unconsecrated  laymen. 
The  Molokan  Elder  is  not  even  an  interpreter  of  religious 
truths.  The  individual  among  them  understands  the  Scrip- 
tures as  he  likes.  In  the  matter  of  fasts  they  recognize  that 
the  Old  Testament  rule  to  avoid  pork,  fish  devoid  of  scales, 
etc.,  is  not  feasible;  but  for  the  rest  they  abstain  from  wine  and 
eat  no  onions  or  garlic.  They  pretend  that  these  are  prejudi- 
cial to  the  bodily  economy.  One  would  like  to  know  whether 
the  refusal  of  onions  and  garlic  is  not  a  survival  of  some  ancient 
taboo,  like  the  English  avoidance  of  horseflesh,  snails,  frogs, 
cuttlefish,  etc. 

Stollov  states  that  the  above  description  is  true  of  the  vast 
majority  of  Molokanye,  but  that  those  of  the  Don  who  call 
themselves  evangelical  Christians  are  less  rigorous  in  their 
practice  of  Uklein's  precept  of  spiritual  worship,  in  that  they 
have  certain  ceremonies  devised  by  themselves.  For  instance 
their  'rectors'  are  called  in  to  read  prayers  over  a  child  on  the 
first  day  after  birth  and  to  bestow  a  name  on  him.  On  the 
fortieth  day  they  read  prayers  for  the  piu-ification  of  the  mother 
and  her  reconciliation  or  rather  atonement  with  the  Church, 
and  at  the  same  time  baptize  the  child,  plunging  it  thrice  into 
the  water,  after,  as  a  preliminary,  they  have  invoked  the  Spirit 
to  descend  and  hallow  the  water. 

One  recognizes  in  the  above  rites  a  mere  survival  of  those  of 
the  Eastern  Churches,  and  they  were  certainly  not  devised  by 
the  Molokanye  as  Stollov  supposes.     He  may  also  be  wrong  in 


310  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

fixing  the  name-giving  rite  on  the  first  day,  for  in  all  oriental 
churches,  even  among  the  Paulicians  of  Armenia,  it  took  place 
on  the  eighth.  This  rite  replaced  among  Gentile  converts  that 
of  circimticision,  but  was  much  older  than  Christianity.  An 
Italian  child  on  the  ninth  day  (counting  in  Roman  fashion  that 
of  birth  as  an  entire  day  and  so  equivalent  to  our  eighth)  was, 
according  to  Macrobius  (Sat.  i,  16)  carried  to  the  temple  by  the 
friends  and  relations,  cleansed  with  water,  given  a  personal 
name  and  recommended  to  the  protection  of  a  tutelar  deity, 
as  in  the  Great  Church  a  child  is  to  that  of  a  saint.  The  god- 
dess who  in  general  presides  over  the  rite  was  by  the  Romans 
known  as  Nundina  or  goddess  of  the  ninth  day,  and  the  day 
was  also  called  dies  lustricus  or  the  day  of  lustration.  Similar 
rites  were  in  vogue  all  round  the  Mediterranean. 

Among  the  Molokanye  of  the  Don  the  presbyter,  according  to 
Stollov,  also  receives  the  personal  and  private  confessions  of 
penitents  and  reads  over  them  prayers  of  absolution.  Further- 
more he  celebrates  with  suitable  prayers  the  breaking  of  bread. 
Early  in  the  morning  bread  is  set  ready  on  a  table  with  red  wine. 
After  prayers  have  been  recited  the  'rector'  or  'Elder'  apos- 
trophizes the  faithful  in  the  words:  "With  fear  of  God  and 
faith  advance,"  and  then  breaks  the  bread  and  distributes  it  to 
each  by  hand  in  a  white  platter  kept  specially  for  the  purpose. 
He  serves  it  round  to  men  and  women  alike,  who  remain  in 
their  places.  The  'rectors'  are  also  summoned  to  visit  the 
sick,  whose  confessions  they  receive,  pray  over  them  and  anoint 
them  with  oil  thrice,  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  on  the  forehead, 
breast,  hands,  feet  and  spine.  Before  accompUshing  this  rite 
they  consecrate  the  oil  with  divers  prayers  and  invoke  upon  it 
the  virtue  of  heahng,  reading  James,  v,  10-16  and  Luke  x, 
25-37.  Unfortunately,  says  Uzov,  we  lack  information  as  to 
the  peculiar  significance  attaching  to  the  'rectors'  among  the 
'Evangelical  Christians';  but  in  view  of  the  survival  among 
them  of  so  many  rites,  performed  by  these  'rectors'  the  latter 
must  be  invested  with  a  higher  dignity  and  importance  than 
they  have  in  other  Molokan  sects. 

Kostomarov  points  out  that  the  Molokan  conceptions  of 
civil  society  are  direct  inferences  from  their  reUgious  outlook. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  311 

Society  and  Christ  cannot  be  separated;  they  are  one  and  the 
same,  and  rest  aUke  on  the  Gospel  precepts  of  love  and  equality, 
in  accordance  with  the  text  (II  Cor.  iii,  17):  God  is  a  Spirit; 
where  there  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  there  is  freedom.  It 
follows  that  we  can  have  no  other  moral  basis  of  true  Christian 
Ufe  than  complete  freedom  and  independence  of  any  human 
laws  and  constraint  of  any  sort.  The  authority  of  men  is  not 
binding  on  those  who  have  the  inspiration  of  the  teaching  of 
Christ.  Worldly  authorities  are  salutary  upon  earth  and 
appointed  by  God,  but  only  so  for  the  children  of  the  world; 
and  the  Lord  spoke  of  Christians  when  he  said:  They  are  not 
of  the  world,  as  I  am  not  of  the  world  (John  xvii,  14).  For 
spiritual  Christians  therefore,  who  are  not  of  the  world,  worldly 
authorities  are  not  needful.  As  children  of  light,  such  Chris- 
tians strive  to  live  according  to  the  commandments  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Fulfilling  God's  commandments,  they  have  no  use  for 
human  laws,  nor  are  they  under  any  obHgation  to  fulfil  them, 
and  by  consequence  their  duty  is  to  avoid  fulfilment  of  laws 
which  violate  the  doctrine  of  God's  word.  Thus  they  ought  to 
avoid  servitude  under  landowners  (this  was  written  after  the 
emancipation  of  the  peasants  as  late  as  1870),  avoid  war  mili- 
tary service,  and  oaths  as  forbidden  by  Scripture.  But  as  it  is 
impossible  openly  to  oppose  the  Government  and  not  to  fulfil 
their  requirements,  spiritual  Christians  in  imitation  of  the  first 
Christians,  must  conceal  themselves  from  it,  and  their  brethren 
in  the  faith  are  under  an  obligation  to  conceal  them  in  fulfilment 
of  the  Scriptural  precept:  'Between  thy  walls  hide  old  and 
httle,  hke  unto  Abraham  who  invited  to  his  meal  three  wan- 
derers or  to  the  harlot  Rahab  who  hid  in  her  household  the 
Hebrew  spies'  (Esdras  ii,  22). 

In  thus  repudiating  allegiance  to  human  laws,  the  Molokanye 
affirm,  as  Kostomarov  remarks,  that  there  is  a  higher  law,  an 
unique,  true  law,  which  has  got  to  be  obeyed,  a  law  written  by 
God  on  the  fleshly  tablets  of  our  heart.  This  law  is  known  and 
adopted  by  dint  of  meditation  and  inflexible  achievement  of 
acts  of  charity  intimated  to  us  by  divine  revelation.  Human 
laws  are  exposed  to  temporal  change:  what  at  one  time  and 
imder  one  Government  is  accounted  a  crime,  at  another  time 


312  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  under  another  Government  is  accounted  a  good  deed  . . . 
Often  among  us,  the  Molokanye  continue,  the  law  prescribes 
the  opposite  of  good  deeds,  and  forbids  what  charity  and  love 
for  one's  neighbour  demands,  and  in  many  cases  prevents  one 
from  doing  good  to  one's  neighbor.  It  is  impossible,  nor  is  it 
one's  duty,  to  do  what  authority  decrees,  if  this  be  opposed  to 
the  demands  of  conscience  and  right.  Thus  they  point  to  the 
example  of  the  early  Christians  whom  the  Roman  emperors 
tried  to  force  to  bow  down  to  idols.  Emperors  were  invested 
with  all  the  power  of  the  law;  and  yet  Christians  did  not  fulfil 
their  commands  when  these  violated  their  convictions.  Thus  it 
was  that  the  three  youths,  despite  the  threat  of  the  Chaldean 
furnace,  refused  to  obey  the  king  who  violated  their  own  law. 
Christ,  though  he  bade  us  render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's,  did  so  with  the  reserve  that  we  render  to  God  what  is 
God's.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  even  if  Caesar  himself 
requires  aught  of  a  kind  to  violate  our  own  law  and  conscience, 
which,  as  Scripture  teaches,  is  the  true  law  of  God,  written  on 
the  fleshy  tablets  of  our  hearts,  we  must  not,  to  please  Caesar, 
violate  the  Divine  will,  otherwise  we  are  timeservers,  respecters 
of  man,  but  reprehensible  before  God.  By  reason  of  this 
preference  of  true  welldoing  to  the  rules  of  convention,  the  Molo- 
kanye go  so  far  as  to  disdain  positive  law:  authority  as  the 
source  of  law  and  constraint  to  fulfil  it  is  in  their  opinion  Uable 
to  reserves,  to  doubts  and  glosses. 

Such  is  Kcstmarov's  account  of  the  Molokan  attitude  on 
the  rights  of  conscience,  and  the  writer  in  the  Orthodox  Review 
(see  above  p.  309)  sets  before  us  the  practical  results  of  their 
adoption  thereof.  They  regard  it  as  a  first  duty  to  avoid  mih- 
tary  service  and  resort  to  any  means  of  escaping  from  it. 
Secondly  they  are  under  no  moral  obligation  to  pay  taxes. 
They  do  not  belong  to  Caesar,  but  to  God,  and  can  recognize 
no  overlordship  of  Caesar.  Thirdly  it  is  a  pious  duty  to  receive 
and  hide  fugitives.  Kostomarov  states  that  in  their  estima- 
tion it  is  the  best  of  deeds  to  conceal  deserters  from  the  army; 
and  that  not  only  deserters,  but  anyone  fleeing  from  the  per- 
secutions of  the  Tsar's  Government  finds  a  welcome  among 
them.     They  say  that  they  do  not  know  the  wrongs  or  rights 


THE  MOLOKANYE  313 

of  the  fugitives,  but  anyhow  the  law  is  frequently  unjust  and 
the  courts  give  false  verdicts,  and  the  authorities  are  given  over 
to  vanity  and  make  demands  opposed  to  the  divine  law.  The 
culprit  pursued  therefore  is  as  likely  as  not  to  be  just  and  inno- 
cent. They  are  not  judges,  nor  called  on  to  decide;  but  they 
deem  it  right  to  help  anyone  who  appeals  to  them  to  save  him, 
mindful  of  the  text :  Hide  between  the  lesser  and  greater  wall. 

Nor  have  they  failed  to  carry  out  in  practice  what  they  hold 
as  a  theory.  They  did  so  in  1826  when  they  refused  to  pay 
taxes  and  to  serve  as  recruits.  The  Russian  Government 
treated  them  then  as  other  Governments  have  treated  those 
who  strive  to  Uve  according  to  the  abstract  precepts  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  They  were  knouted  and  exiled  to  Siberia,  and 
many  of  them  sent  into  madhouses  where  they  perished. 

Since  1827  the  idea  of  refusing  taxes  has  not  been  put  forward 
by  the  Molokanye  who  according  to  Varadinov  {op.  cit.  viii  233) 
punctually  pay  the  imperial  taxes.  But  as  they  obstinately 
refuse  to  bear  arms,  they  are  assigned  duties  in  Sanitary  units, 
hospitals,  transport  etc.^ 

To-day,  says  Kostomarov,  the  Molokanye  hold  this  language : 
"We  must  recognize  the  Authorities,  whatever  they  be,  as  soon 
as  they  come  into  existence.  But  we  deem  it  impossible  and 
wrong  to  regard  anything  they  do  or  say  as  excellent,  in  case  our 
own  reason  convince  us  that  it  is  not  so."  "It  is,"  they  say, 
"merely  to  submit  to  monarchical  authority."  But  they  do 
not  regard  as  valid  any  external  tokens  of  its  sanctity  nor  set 
any  store  by  any  monarch  as  a  divine  anointed  being;  they  are 
more  inclined  in  opposition  to  the  monarchical  institution  itself 
to  point  to  the  history  of  Saul:  "By  the  lips  of  Samuel  himself 
the  Divine  being  dissuaded  the  IsraeUtes  from  choosing  a  king 
for  themselves;  and  the  prophet  warned  his  people  of  the  tribu- 
lations and  iniquities  they  would  suffer  as  soon  as  they  set  a 
king  over  themselves".  .  ."Rejecting  kingly  power,  they 
equally  reject  every  sort  of  personal  distinction;  for  according 
to  their  doctrine  all  men  are  equals  of  one  another,  all  are 
brethren,  and  there  should  not  be  nobles  or  plebeians;  and 
correspondingly  all  outward  badges  of  distinction,  titles,  rank 

1  Rusak.  Mir,  Nov.  5, 1876. 


314  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

are  from  their  point  of  view  vanities  and  contradictions  of 
evangelical  teaching." 

They  regard  all  war  as  forbidden,  and  maintain  on  the  basis 
of  the  precepts  of  Christ,  that  we  ought  not  to  resist  evil,  but 
rather  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter.  They  say  that 
blessed  are  they  who  live  in  peace  and  are  peacemakers,  for 
they  shall  be  called  Sons  of  God.  For  the  same  reason  they 
refuse  to  bear  arms,  says  the  Archimandrite  Israel  in  his  Sketch 
of  the  Russian  Dissenters  {Ohozren.  russk.  Raskol.  p.  253),  and 
consider  any  revolt  against  the  Powers  which  be,  no  matter 
how  unjust  they  are,  as  in  itself  a  wrong  act.  They  preach 
instead  a  sturdy  endurance  and  tenacity  of  purpose.  Rebel- 
Uon  and  open  opposition  bring  in  their  train  evil  to  one's  neigh- 
bours and  it  is  our  duty  to  avoid  anything  that  may  do  harm.'' 
There  are  those  however  who  suspect  the  Molokanye  of  only 
•counselUng  submission  to  the  Authorities  because  they  have  no 
choice,  and  say  they  only  do  so  until  the  time  comes  when  they 
shall  have  won  enough  influence  and  become  strong  enough  to 
shake  off  the  pagan  yoke.^  Long  ago  there  appeared  to  be  a 
basis  for  this  suspicion,  because  among  other  things  they  sent  a 
•deputation  to  meet  Napoleon  in  1812  under  the  impression 
that  he  would  protect  them.  Its  members  however  were  cap- 
tured on  the  banks  of  the  Vistula,  as  Aug.  Haxthausen  relates 
in  his  Survey  of  interior  relations  {Izsledov.  vnutr.  otnosh.  p.  260). 
During  the  Crimean  war  the  Molokanye,  according  to  the 
Orthodox  Review  (1867,  art.  7,  p.  337),  expressed  the  opinion 
that  prayer  ought  not  to  be  offered  up  for  the  Tsar,  but  on  the 
contrary  for  the  defeat  of  those  who  oppressed  the  Spiritual 
Christians  and  curtailed  their  Hberties.  Prof.  Asher  however, 
who  has  studied  them  in  our  own  day,  writes  as  follows  in  the 
European  Messenger  (Vestn.  Europ.  1879,  no.  9,  p.  371) :  "The 
Molokanye  having  long  ago  got  accustomed  to  being  referred  to 
in  the  laws  as  a  dangerous  sect,  take  up  the  same  attitude  to  the 
Authorities  and  the  Government  as  did  the  earUest  Christians : 
they  scrupulously  obey  them,  but  regard  them  as  alien  to  them- 
selves. The  estabUshed  Church  they  term  the  Russian  and  its 
adherents  Russians,  as  if  they  were  themselves  foreigners." 

^  Kostomarov  op.  cit.  p.  76-7. 
*  Varadinov  op.  cit.  viii,  318. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  315 

They  condemn,  continues  Kostomarov,  all  luxury  and  elab- 
orate food  or  dress,  in  general  all  expensive  habits  of  life.  On 
this  head  they  reason  thus:  If  we  insist  on  Uving  luxuriously 
and  use  up  on  ourselves  a  great  deal  of  wealth,  we  shall  only 
help  to  disseminate  misery  among  our  neighbours.  Every 
superfluity  we  allow  ourselves  deprives  others  of  our  brethren 
of  what  is  indispensable  to  them.  It  is  well  to  be  rich,  but 
let  your  wealth  be  for  the  common  benefit  of  our  brethren,  and 
not  spent  to  gratify  the  caprices  of  its  owner.  Let  him  find  his 
own  greatest  pleasure  in  this  that,  more  than  others,  he  can 
contribute  to  the  welfare  of  his  society;  but  to  do  so  he  must 
lead  a  simple  fife  and  not  go  mad  about  luxuries.  After  reading 
the  above  we  shall  not  be  surprised  to  learn  from  S.  Atav,  writ- 
ing in  the  National  Memorials  {Otech.  Zapisk.  1870,  No.  4, 
p.  621-3),  that  the  Molokanye  are  thrice  or  four  times  as  rich 
as  the  orthodox;  the  reason  being,  among  them  as  among  our 
own  Quakers,  their  perpetual  and  habitual  readiness  to  rescue 
one  another.  We  have  been  told,  continues  Atav,  that  there 
never  was  a  case  of  a  Molokan  household  being  ruined.  Posi- 
tively they  would  never  allow  such  a  thing  to  happen.  If  a 
calamity  befalls  one  of  them,  all  are  prepared  to  assist  him. 
Another  writer  in  the  same  journal  (1828,  pt.  33,  p.  58)  records 
that  the  majority  of  the  Molokanye  love  to  do  good;  and  even 
endeavour  to  banish  from  their  lives  anything  that  in  their 
opinion  can  corrupt  a  man.  Thus  they  condemn  card-playing 
and  in  general  any  game  that  aims  at  making  money  for  the 
player  of  it.  They  argue  that  such  games  are  a  useless  waste  of 
time  and  teach  a  man  to  be  rapacious;  that  they  generate  strife 
among  people  because  in  them  one  wins  at  the  expense  of 
another.  Nothing  is  so  pernicious  as  play  and  drink,  they  say, 
nothing  leads  so  directly  to  ruin  and  sin  against  the  Christian 
fife.  Both  of  these  vices  are  equally  to  be  shunned.  Hard 
work,  according  to  them,  is  as  necessary  to  man  as  bread  and 
breath  of  life.  It  not  only  furnishes  means  to  live,  but  keeps  a 
man  out  of  the  way  of  ruin  and  depravity;  consequently  they 
look  upon  work  as  a  religious  duty.^  These  people,  says 
another  authority,  Phihbert,  in  the  Nat.  Mem.  (1870,  No.  3), 

1  Kostomarov,  op.  cit.  p.  74-5. 


316  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  moment  you  come  across  them,  rivet  your  attention  by  their 
reasonable  modes  of  personal  expression  and  by  the  peculiarly 
sensible  way  in  which  they  talk.  They  are  distinguished  by 
their  sobriety  and  good  manners  and  morals;  by  their  addic- 
tion to  labour  and  enterprise.  Their  villages  are  neat  and  well 
built.  In  all  branches  of  household  economy  they  show  a  gift 
of  organization  and  attain  great  success  in  the  production  of 
-wool.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  Tauric  Molokanye 
according  to  a  writer  in  the  Nat.  Mem.  (1870,  No.  3).  The 
same  Heidelberg  professor  Asher  in  the  European  Messenger 
(1879,  no.  9,  p.  379)  declares  that  you  recognize  the  Molokanye 
at  first  glance  by  their  look  of  honesty,  the  gentle  expression  of 
their  countenances,  by  their  frank  and  open  demeanour. 

They  are  keen  propagandists,  especially  among  the  labouring 
classes.^  For  a  long  time  stress  of  persecution  made  them  very 
circumspect,  and  it  was  only  when  persecutions  relaxed  some- 
what that  they  went  to  work  openly.  Every  Molokanin  is 
famihar  with  the  Gospel  and  overwhelms  an  adversary  in  dis- 
cussion with  citations  of  it.  The  result  is  that  a  village  priest 
seldom  risks  a  controversy  with  them.  ''More  than  once," 
says  Atav,^  *'I  have  seen  priests  subjected  to  resoimding 
defeats,  followed  most  certainly  by  the  conversion  of  very 
many  of  the  listeners.  Nor  do  they  confine  themselves  to 
acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures;  for  many  of  them  buy  or 
obtain  various  books,  which  they  devour  in  the  hope  of  finding 
in  them  arguments  of  some  sort  in  support  of  their  teaching." 

The  spiritual  Christians  of  the  Don  Sect,  who  call  themselves 
EvangeUcals,  differ  somewhat  in  their  political  and  social  views 
from  the  followers  of  Uklein.  Thus,  to  use  their  own  phrase, 
they  have  always  fulfilled  the  orders  of  the  Government  with- 
out a  murmur.  Their  Elders  instruct  those  whom  fate  trans- 
fers into  the  ranks  of  the  imperial  army  to  accompUsh  their 
duties  as  soldiers  and  to  cherish  in  their  souls  the  fear  of  God, 
bearing  in  mind  the  precept  of  King  Solomon:  ''Fear  God,  my 
son,  and  the  King,  and  oppose  thyself  to  neither  of  them." 
Hereby,  so  they  insist  to  their  flock,  they  are  obhged  to^love 

»  Orth.  Review  1876,  vol.  I,  p.  333^,  art.  by  Z. 
2  Nai.  Mem.  1870,  No.  4,  p.  622. 


THE  MOLOKANYE  317 

the  Ruler  and  serve  him  honestly.  If  they  are  requu*ed  to  take 
an  oath,  they  must  tender  it  in  the  same  form  as  others,  only 
omitting  the  words  'before  the  lifegiving  cross.'  They  would 
have  it  administered  by  an  Elder  of  their  own  faith  before  an 
open  Gospel.^  Furthermore  these  evangelicals  offer  prayers  in 
their  meetings  for  the  Emperor  and  the  Powers  that  be.'- 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  account  of  the  Spiritual  Chris- 
tians of  the  Don  that  the  Geneva  tract  which  we  have  summa- 
rized did  not  emanate  from  them,  but  from  the  followers  of 
Uklein,  who  eschew  baptism  and  rites  of  communion.  The 
latter  better  reflect  the  Cathar  tradition,  or  anyhow  a  tradi- 
tion closely  resembhng  that  of  the  Albigenses.  The  Evan- 
gelicals of  the  Don  wear  rather  the  air  of  a  much  expurgated 
orthodoxy,  and  must  be  remotely  derived  from  the  Russian 
Church,  from  which  they  are  hardly  more  widely  separated 
than  are  extreme  low  churchmen  of  the  Anglican  commimion 
from  the  Romanizing  ritualists. 

Ivanovski's  account 

So  far  we  have  described  the  Molokanye  from  their  own  man- 
ual of  instruction  and  from  the  accounts  given  by  Russian 
publicists,  if  not  wholly  favourable  to  them,  at  least  fair- 
minded.  It  remains  to  complete  it  from  the  pages  of  Prof. 
Ivanovski  who  is  openly  hostile.  His  sources  were  as  follows: 
"History  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior,"  Suppl.  to  Vol.  viii, 
p.  232:  also  Livanov,  Vol.  1,  art.  xii;  Vol.  ii,  arts,  vii  and  xiv; 
National  Memorials"  {Otech.  Zap.),  1867  for  March  and  1870 
for  Jime:  "Orthodox  Conversations"  (Pravosl.  Sobes.),  1858. 
In  general  his  conclusions  and  statements  agree  with  those  of 
the  sources  I  have  set  before  the  reader. 

He  regards  the  temper  underlying  this  religious  movement 
as|_a  mixture  of  wilful  mysticism  and  irreverence  for  scripture, 
for  he  cannot  conceive  of  people  seriously  taking  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  as  their  rule  of  Hfe.  He  is  also  very  severe  on 
the  half  divine  authority  claimed  by  some  of  their  leaders,  such 

1  Nat.  Mem.  1870,  No.  6,  art.  by  StoUov,  p.  309. 

2  Orth.  Review  1867,  vol.  I,  art.  by  Z.,  p.  331. 


318  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

as  Pobirokhin,  who,  he  declares,  pretended  to  be  judge  of  the 
world.  After  all  even  Orthodox  Bishops  claim  the  right,  and 
exercise  it,  of  excommunicating  whom  they  will;  so  we  may- 
pardon  the  minor  extravagances  of  a  fervent  Russian  peasant. 

Semen  Uklein,  whom  the  Molokanye  reverence  as  their  proxi- 
mate founder,  was  a  tailor,  who  in  following  his  trade,  moved  up 
and  down  the  Governments  of  Tambov  and  Voronezh.  He  was 
already  married,  but  falhng  under  the  influence  of  Pobirokhin 
he  fell  a  convert  to  the  Dukhobor  faith,  to  which  his  famili- 
arity with  Scripture  already  predisposed  him.  He  now  aspired 
to  marry  his  teacher's  daughter  and  she  became  his  spiritual 
wife.  But  presently  he  came  to  find  fault  with  his  father-in- 
law's  obstinate  claim  to  judge  all  men  and  his  preference  for 
his  own  inner  lights  over  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  and  after 
five  years  he  finally  emancipated  himself  from  his  influence. 
Meanwhile  many  inhabitants  of  the  Tambov  province  infected 
with  the  rationalism,  as  Ivanovski  calls  it, —  meaning  thereby 
the  temper  which  rejects  orthodox  accretions  on  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  New  Testament  —  of  Tveretinov,  had  attached 
themselves  to  Uklein.  They  had  been  marked  down  by  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  as  dangerous  people,  but  formed  no 
distinct  sect  until  Uklein  organized  them  as  such,  and  choosing 
seventy  of  them  as  his  disciples  or  apostles  made  a  solemn 
entry  into  the  town  of  Tambov,  singing  hynms  and  proclaim- 
ing his  new  doctrine.  It  may  be  that  he  was  inspired  by  the 
story  of  Palm  Sunday  and  saw  no  reason  why  the  Orthodox 
should  have  a  monopoly  of  Tabors  or  rehgious  processions  and 
of  similar  spectacular  enterprises. 

All  this  occurred  in  the  reign  of  Catharine  II,  whose  poUce 
now  seized  and  locked  him  up.  He  was  given  a  choice  of 
punishment  or  of  returning  to  the  orthodoxy  in  which  he  had 
been  brought  up.  He  made  beUef  of  returning,  but  in  fact 
went  on  with  his  propaganda,  and  converted  as  many  as  5000 
souls  in  the  provinces  of  Tambov,  Voronezh  and  (the  modern) 
Saratov.  His  sect  also  spread  to  Ekaterinoslav,  Astrakhan  and 
the  Caucasus. 

As  early  as  1765  the  church  consistory  of  Tambov  labelled 
them  Molokanye  because  of  their  drinking  milk  during  the 


THE  MOLOKANYE  31& 

canonical  fasts.  The  name  stuck,  and  they  interpreted  it 
themselves  as  meaning  that  the  simple  evangelical  teaching  on 
which  they  fed  was  the  Milk  of  the  Word.  In  general  they 
called  themselves  as  the  Spiritual  Christians,  and  they  regard 
themselves  as  the  only  true  successors  of  the  Church  of  the 
first  three  centuries. 

Ivanovski  has  of  course  little  difficulty  in  shewing  that  many 
traditions,  especially  that  of  episcopacy,  which  they  reject,. 
were  well  established  long  before  the  year  300,  and  pathetically 
complains  of  their  rejection  of  the  authority  of  the  Fathers.  He 
testifies  that  they  do  not  trouble  their  heads  very  much  about 
minutiae  of  Trinitarian  theology,  Uklein  being  so  ignorant  as 
to  suppose  that  the  Son  and  Holy  Spirit  are  not  coequal  in 
dignity  with  God  the  father.  Ivanovski  also  imparts  to  us 
the  very  significant  information  that  Uklein  held  a  more  or  less 
docetic  view  of  Christ  and  taught,  like  Marcion  and  the  Cathars 
and  Anabaptists  of  a  still  later  age,  that  the  Son  of  the  Virgin 
did  not  take  from  her  real  human  flesh,  but  resembled  in  this 
matter  Tobit's  friend  and  guide,  the  Archangel  Raphael,  who 
declared  as  follows:  "All  these  days  did  I  appear  unto  you, 
but  I  did  neither  eat  nor  drink,  but  ye  did  see  a  vision."  ^  In 
this  semi-phantastic  body  then,  according  to  the  Molokanye,, 
Christ  ascended  into  Heaven,  and  being  endowed  therewith,  it 
follows  that  his  death  was  not  the  death  of  ordinary  men,  but 
of  a  kind  pecuHar  to  himself.  As  a  rule,  however,  they  set  small 
store  by  such  speculations,  reserving  all  their  ardour  for  the 
upholding  of  those  tenets  wherein  they  contrast  externally 
with  the  Orthodox  Church,  whose  sacramental  theory,  rites,, 
fasts,  icon-worship,  etc.  they  summarily  reject.  In  these 
matters  they  retain  the  essential  teachings  of  the  parent  Duk- 
hobor  sect,  only  differing  from  it  in  this  that  they  want  to 
prove  everything  out  of  scripture.  But  in  interpreting  scrip- 
ture they  explain  away  as  allegory  and  parable  all  that  stands 
in  their  way,  e.  g.  the  words  'of  water'  in  John  iii,  5,  which 
it  may  be  well  noted  Justin  Martyr,  c.  A.D.  150,  our  earliest  wit- 
ness to  the  said  text,  significantly  omits.     Had  these  Russian 

»  From  the  same  docetic  standpoint  Philo  interprets  the  visits  of  the  three 
angels  to  Abraham. 


320  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

heretics  studied  the  early  Fathers,  they  would  have  found 
much  to  their  advantage  and  to  the  discomfiture  of  their 
orthodox  persecutors.  In  this  particular  text  they  argue  that 
water  no  more  signifies  the  real  water  than  it  does  in  the  text 
John  vii  38 :  "He  that  beheves  in  me,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow 
rivers  of  living  water."  Another  example  of  their  exegesis 
particularly  irritating  to  Ivanovski  is  their  conjunction  of 
John  vi,  63  with  John  vi,  51  to  prove  that  the  story  of  the  Last 
Supper  should  be  taken  figuratively  and  not  Uterally,  for  ''the 
letter  killeth."  Nor  can  he  excuse  them  for  insisting  that  our 
Lord's  petition  that  his  persecutors  might  be  forgiven,  as  also  the 
Beatitudes  and  the  precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  are  of 
universal  range  and  anyhow  apply  to  modern  Russians.  Such 
texts,  says  Ivanovski,  only  apply  in  their  contexts  and  in  view 
of  the  pecuhar  setting  and  background  of  historical  events  in 
which  they  were  delivered.  Called  upon  to  practice  Christ's 
own  teaching  the  orthodox  divine  suddenly  becomes  the  most 
extreme  of  higher  critics  and  discovers  it  to  have  been  a  mere 
ad  interim  moraUty. 

Ivanovski  devotes  a  special  chapter  to  the  religious  services 
of  the  Dukhobortsy  and  Molokanye,  in  which  he  repeats  what 
Livanov  has  to  say  in  his  first  volume,  articles  XVI  and  XXIII, 
and  in  his  second,  articles  VII,  XI,  XIV,  and  XXVI;  also  what 
he  has  read  in  the  Orthodox  Conversations  of  1858.  He  also 
uses  two  manuals  of  devotion  issued  by  the  Molokanye  them- 
selves. The  leading  difference  in  matters  of  cult  between  the 
Dukhobortsy  and  the  Molokanye  is  that  the  former  recite  in 
their  gatherings  their  "living  book."  The  Molokanye  meet  in 
an  ordinary  chamber,  devoid  of  ecclesiastical  furniture  and  deco- 
rations, with  a  table  in  the  middle  and  benches  or  stools  along 
the  walls.  The  other  sect  prefers  to  hold  its  meetings  out  of 
doors.  The  men  sit  on  the  right  hand,  women  on  the  left. 
On  entering  the  meeting  a  Dukhoborets  cries:  "Glory  be  to 
God,"  and  those  already  present  answer:  "Great  is  his  name 
all  over  the  earth."  Very  generally  when  they  thus  meet  the 
men  salute  the  men  and  the  women  the  women;  each  takes  the 
other  by  the  right  hand  and,  after  the  manner  of  the  medieval 
Cathars  and  of  Christians  in  the  age  of  TertuUian,  makes  three 


THE  MOLOKANYE  321 

low  bows,  one  to  another,  kissing  each  the  other  thrice.  The 
bow  is  a  token  that  they  are  theophoroi,  as  St.  Ignatius  was 
entitled,  or  that  they  bear  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spkit  in  their 
hearts  and  persons.  Children  on  these  occasions  prostrate 
themselves  thrice  at  the  feet  of  their  elders  and  kiss  their  hands. 

It  is  possible  that  the  prayers  I  have  found  in  the  Geneva 
manual  are  those  which  Uklein  certainly  composed  for  sundry 
occasions.  Some  of  his  prayers  were  to  be  repeated  kneeling, 
others  standing  up  with  hands  raised  to  heaven  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  primitive  oranti  depicted  in  the  Christian  catacombs. 
Ivanovski  records,  however,  that  after  Uklein's  death  the  addi- 
tion in  some  congregations  of  fresh  prayers,  unauthorized  by 
him,  led  to  schisms.  The  Molokanye,  as  we  saw,  recognize  the 
chief  Christian  feasts,  so  contrasting  with  the  Dukhobortsy  who 
refuse  to  regard  one  day  as  holier  than  another.  Every  free 
day  is  by  the  latter  equally  holy  to  worship,  and  they  have  a 
jingle  in  which  they  proclaim  Monday  (Ponedyelnik)  as  sacred 
to  God's  works  (dyela  Gospodnya),  Tuesday  to  regeneration 
of  man,  etc.  They  equally  reject  the  occasional  rites  devised 
by  the  Molokanye  for  the  events  of  birth,  marriage  and  death. 
Ivanovski  confirms  the  statement  that  the  Molokanye  in  their 
rite  of  'Churching'  a  child  (the  original  meaning  of  the  cere- 
mony of  the  fortieth  day,  see  Luke  ii,  22  foil.)  blow  or  breathe 
on  the  child's  Ups,  as  Jesus  blew  on  his  Apostles,  by  way  of 
comnaimicating  to  it  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  the  rite  of  marriage 
he  notes  that  the  parents  bless  their  respective  children  by 
laying  their  hands  on  their  heads,  they  kneeling  while  the 
appropriate  prayers  are  read  over  them.  This  is  done  in  the 
respective  houses.  The  famiUes  then  meet  and  the  girl's 
father,  taking  her  hand,  says  to  the  bridegroom:  "I  give  thee 
my  daughter  to  wife."  The  young  parties  are  asked  if  they 
love  each  other,  mutual  vows  are  interchanged,  and  the  rite 
ends  with  lections  of  the  Apostle  and  prayers  with  genuflexion. 
He  notes  also  that  the  Molokanye,  like  the  Armenian  and  many 
other  churches,  have  separate  funeral  rites  for  adults  and  chil- 
dren. 

Ivanovski  notes  that  these  sects  infer  from  the  fact  of  be- 
lievers being  equals  in  rehgion  and  before  God,  that  they  should 


322  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

be  equals  in  civil  rank  and  dignity.  He  deplores  their  con- 
fusion of  religions  with  civil  and  social  life.  Though  he  does 
not  accuse  them  of  setting  the  civil  authorities  at  naught,  he 
urges  that  their  doctrines  tend  to  weaken  their  obedience  to  the 
State  and  that  they  set  up  an  impossible  ideal,  which  tends  to 
the  denial  of  the  necessity  of  civil  authorities.  They  even  go 
so  far  as  to  deny  that  the  Tsar  is  the  anointed  vessel  of  divine 
election,  and  so  rob  him  of  his  holy  and  reUgious  character  — 
words  which  make  queer  reading  to-day. 

The  Dukhobortsy  are  siu-e  that  theirs  is  the  freedom  of  the 
Gospel,  and  that  all  legitimate  authority  is  from  God.  Uklein 
distinguished  less  emphatically  between  divine  and  human  law, 
laid  stress  on  obedience  to  constituted  authority  and  insisted 
on  prayers  being  said  for  the  Tsar.  Both  sects  condemn  serf- 
dom, war,  and  the  taking  of  oaths,  and  encourage  the  harbour- 
ing of  deserters. 

Ivanovski  makes  much  of  the  occasional  extravagances  of 
Molokan  leaders,  and  it  is  inevitable  that  such  incidents  as 
the  following  should  occm*  amidst  a  population  so  devout, 
humble  and  impressionable  as  the  Slavs.  One  of  Uklein's 
successors,  Sidor  Andreev,  a  deserter  from  the  Army,  fled  into 
Persia.  Returning  thence  after  some  years  into  Russia,  he 
settled  among  the  Molokanye  of  the  Government  of  Saratov 
and  began  to  preach  that  God  was  about  to  appear  and  liberate 
them  from  oppression  by  the  Russian  State,  and  he  promised  to 
lead  them  into  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  in  the  neigh- 
boiu-hood  of  Mount  Ararat.  Just  then  Russia  had  annexed 
Persian  Armenia,  which  included  the  fertile  basin  of  Ararat, 
and  it  is  likely  enough  that  the  biblical  and  other  legends 
centering  round  that  famous  moimtain  appealed  to  the  imagi- 
nation of  Russian  peasants  schooled  to  regard  the  Bible  as  the 
sole  source  of  religious  truth.  What  would  not  have  been  the 
effect  of  a  similar  conquest  on  the  evangelical  and  methodist 
sects  of  England  and  Wales?  Andreev  therefore  set  out  to  lead 
his  followers  to  so  famous  and  holy  a  locality,  but  under  the 
tutelage  of  the  Russian  Government  he  found  his  way  instead 
to  the  mines  of  Siberia. 

In  1815  an  Enghsh  Methodist,  Young  Stilling,  pubhshed  a 


THE  MOLOKANYE  323 

book  entitled  'The  Triumph  of  Christian  Faith,'  of  which  the 
Russian  translation  achieved  great  vogue  and  contributed  not 
a  little  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  mystical  dreams  among  the 
Molokanye.  It  was  a  commentary  on  the  Apocalypse,  in  which 
the  Church  was  identified  with  the  evangeUcalism  which  rejects 
the  sacraments  and  rituaUsm  of  Rome;  the  Russian  sectaries 
had  no  difficulty  in  applying  StilHng's  arguments  to  the  Ortho- 
dox Church,  and  greedily  welcomed  the  idea  that  Christ  would 
ere  long  inaugurate  the  Millennium  in  the  basin  of  Ararat,  the 
home  of  the  human  race  and  traditional  site  of  Paradise.  This 
was  in  1830,  immediately  after  Russia  had  acquired  these  regions 
by  the  treaty  of  Turkmanchai  in  1828.  The  thousand  years 
of  glory  were  to  begin  in  1836,  according  to  Niketas  Ivanov,  a 
Molokan  prophet  of  MeUtopol,  and  others  hke  him.  The 
result  was  a  considerable  movement  of  peasants  towards  the 
new  Jerusalem,  and  they  began  to  flock  from  various  Govern- 
ments to  the  Caucasus.  An  Elias  appeared  among  them  in 
1833  in  the  person  of  Terence  Byelozorov  of  Melitopol,  who 
even  foretold  the  very  day  on  which  at  the  expiration  of  two 
and  a  half  years  Ehas  would,  as  apocalyptic  story  required, 
reascend  to  heaven.  Crowds  duly  collected  to  witness  the 
miracle,  and  the  prophet  with  desperate  leapings  and  waving 
of  his  arms  attempted,  like  Simon  Magus  and  St.  Peter,  to  take 
to  the  air.  But  earth  chained  his  specific  gravity,  and  Russian 
officials  his  further  freedom,  and  he  was  locked  up  until  such 
time  as  he  should  forget  his  apocalyptic  privileges. 

In  1836  a  false  Messiah  from  Moldavia  made  his  appearance, 
Lukian  Petrov,  and  chose  from  among  his  followers  two  to 
impersonate  Enoch  and  EUas.  Next  he  persuaded  a  number  of 
Molokanye  to  don  their  Sunday  garb  and  start  for  the  Caucasus, 
so  as  to  be  in  time  for  the  second  Advent.  He  is  said  to  have 
paved  his  way  with  supposititious  wonders.  He  persuaded  two 
girls  to  simulate  death  like  well-trained  dogs;  then  at  his  magic 
word  they  leapt  into  life  amidst  the  plaudits  of  the  faithful. 
Two  other  false  Messiahs  appeared  among  the  Molokanye  of 
Samara.  Meanwhile  new  essays  at  ascension  into  Heaven 
were  made  in  the  region  south  of  the  Caucasus  by  an  Elder 
who  had  discovered  the  New  Zion  at  Alexandropol.    He  had. 


324  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

like  the  early  pioneers  of  modern  aviation,  made  himself  canvas 
wings,  with  which  he  attempted  flights  from  house-tops  and 
summits  of  hills  veiled  appropriately  with  clouds. 

Ivanovski  relates  these  incidents  with  sombre  joy,  and  it 
would  not  astonish  us  if  they  really  took  place  amid  enthusiasts 
hard-pressed  by  the  iron  hand  of  persecutors  and  thrilled  with 
the  perusal  of  such  a  weird  monument  of  early  Christian  faith 
as  the  Apocalypse.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the  Greek  Church, 
under  the  influence  of  such  teachers  as  Dionysius  of  Alexandria 
and  Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  removed  that  book  for  hundreds  of 
years  from  their  canon  of  scripture  precisely  because  it  roused 
men  to  excesses  of  Millenarist  enthusiasm.  History  repeats 
itself,  and  these  Molokanye  enacted  over  again  scenes  of  which 
we  read  in  the  pages  of  Irenaeus,  Hippolytus  and  other  ante- 
Nicene  Fathers. 

We  noticed  above  the  anxiety  of  the  authors  of  the  Manual  to 
repudiate  the  Uteral  keeping  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  and  the 
observance  of  Jewish  food  taboos,  pork,  fish  without  scales,  etc. 
This  is  expUcable  from  the  fact  attested  by  Ivanovski  that  some 
groups  of  the  Molokanye,  under  the  influence  of  the  O.  T.,  and 
perhaps  of  the  millions  of  Jews  who  inhabited  then  as  now  the 
South  of  Russia,  set  themselves  to  Judaize.  Semen  Dalmatov,  a 
partisan  of  Uklein,  led  the  way,  and  is  said  to  have  really  con- 
verted his  leader  to  his  views.  If  so,  Uklein  did  not  attempt  to 
impose  them  on  his  followers.  We  have  seen  Bibliolatry  lead  to 
many  curious  movements,  so  it  is  only  natural  it  should  have  had 
similar  results  in  Russia,  and  Ivanovski  indicates  various 
sources  of  information  concerning  them,  namely  the  Orthodox 
Conversations  for  1858-9;  National  Memorials  for  1828,  pt.  33, 
p.  57,  for  1864,  bk.  5,  for  1867,  July,  for  1870,  June;  Strannik 
for  1878,  January;  Journal  of  the  See  of  the  Caucasus,  for 
1875,  p.  195. 

These  sources  incUne  us  to  suppose  that  Uklein  really  adopted 
the  Judaism  of  Dalmatov.  But  his  followers  could  not  agree, 
and  the  quarrel  spread  to  the  Government  of  Saratov,  where 
under  stress  of  opposition  Uklein's  followers  went  so  far  as  to 
exalt  the  Mosaic  Law  above  the  Christian,  and  taught  that 
Jesus  was  no  more  than  a  man  born  of  men,  a  prophet  indeed, 


THE  MOLOKANYE  325 

but  inferior  to  Moses.  Perhaps  this  was  a  reaction  against 
the  docetic  view  of  Jesus'  flesh  current  among  them  in  some 
circles.  It  is  exactly  the  sort  of  thesis  and  antithesis  which 
we  find  between  the  Gnostics  and  the  future  CathoHc  Church 
in  the  early  stages  of  the  Christian  rehgion.  The  Judaizers  of 
Saratov,  we  learn,  rejected  essential  Christian  dogmas  and 
feasted  Saturday  instead  of  Sunday  under  the  leadership  of  a 
peasant  named  Sunbukov  of  the  village  Dubovsk  in  that 
province.  These  called  the  other  Molokanye  who  disagreed  with 
them  the  Sundayites.  Unlike  the  true  Jews,  however,  Sunbu- 
kov's  sect  do  not  look  forward  to  a  Messiah.  There  already 
existed  in  Russia  before  the  year  1800  groups  of  Jewish  prose- 
lytes, and  to  them  this  new  sect  in  time  affiliated  itself.  To-day 
they  deny  the  Divinity  of  Christ  in  the  sense  that  others  assert 
it  and  repudiate  all  the  external  rites  and  symbols  of  orthodox 
Christianity;  yet  they  are  eclectics  and  do  not  adopt  indiscrim- 
inately all  the  observances  of  Russian  Jews;  for  example,  they 
do  not  insist  on  circumcision  and  the  feast  of  new  moons.  They 
interpret,  as  did  the  good  bishop  Archelaus  and  the  Gnostics,^ 
the  text  of  Isaiah  'a  Virgin  shall  conceive,'  etc.  of  the  Virgin 
Chiu-ch,  and  they  deny  that  the  scene  of  the  Messianic  King- 
dom will  be  laid  on  earth.  On  the  contrary  the  Messiah  will 
be  a  mighty  moral  teacher,  renovating  mankind  with  his 
teaching  and  inaugurating  an  epoch  of  freedom  and  sweet 
reasonableness.  In  their  dwellings  these  Judaizers  of  Russia 
keep  the  sacred  books  under  a  veil  on  a  shelf  in  the  corner  of 
their  room,  where  the  orthodox  peasant  hangs  up  his  ikon. 
They  are  reckoned,  or  were  till  yesterday  reckoned,  by  the 
Russian  Government  as  one  of  the  more  noxious  sects,  because 
they  deny  the  dogma  of  the  Incarnation.  They  evidently 
reproduce  many  characteristics  of  early  Ebionite  Christianity. 
Uklein,  as  we  have  seen,  tried  in  opposition  to  the  Dukho- 
bortsy  from  whom  he  was  sprung,  to  institute  among  his  fol- 
lowers the  ideas  and  practices  of  the  ApostoUc  age;  and  his 
follower  Isaiah  Krylov  of  Saratov,  a  deserter  from  the  army, 
who  had  fled  into  the  Caucasus,  spread  his  master's  tenets  in 
that  region  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  XlXth  Century.     The 

1  Cf.  the  Acta  Archelai. 


326  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

police  drove  him  back  into  Russia,  and  he  settled  in  the  village 
of  Salamatir  in  the  province  of  Saratov.  He  knew  the  Bible 
almost  by  heart,  and  introduced  a  rite  of  the  Breaking  of  Bread, 
and  of  prayers  partly  with  genuflexion,  partly  with  upUfted 
hands.  After  his  death  his  innovations  were,  in  spite  of  the 
opposition  of  one  PcheUn,  further  developed  by  Maslov,  who 
wTote  prayers  and  chose  lections  for  the  evening  rite  of  the 
Breaking  of  Bread.  He  is  also  said  to  have  devised  the  rite  of 
Namegiving  in  use  among  the  Molokanye  along  with  that  of 
blowing  on  a  child's  lips  on  the  fortieth  day  after  birth,  and  also 
the  rite  of  marriage.  One  of  his  adherents,  a  Cossack  named 
Andrew  Salamatin  in  1823  propagated  his  tenets  in  the  Tauric 
Chersonese,  and  his  teaching  was  developed  into  that  of  the 
Molokanye  of  the  Don.  The  rites  and  teaching  of  the  latter 
are  described  by  Ivanovski  from  three  sources,  the  National 
Memorials  of  1870,  bk.  6;  the  Orthodox  Review  of  1867,  pt.  22; 
and  a  manual  drawn  up  by  themselves  in  1875.  His  descrip- 
tion agrees  in  all  essential  respects  with  that  which  we  have 
already  furnished.  He  rightly  observes  that,  of  all  the  Molo- 
kan  groups,  that  of  the  Don  approximates  most  closely  to  the 
Orthodox  Chm-ch. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  COMMUNISTS,  STUNDISTS  AND  OTHER  SMALL  SECTS 

The  Communists 

This  sect  is  a  ramification  of  the  Molokanye,  from  whom  they 
only  differ  in  details  of  social  organization.  It  was  foimded 
by  a  well-to-do  peasant  of  Samara  named  Maxim  Akinthiev 
Popov  who  about  the  year  1820  wrote  a  tract  upholding  the 
commimism  of  the  earhest  Church  as  described  in  the  Book  of 
Acts,  and  working  out  a  scheme  for  a  communistic  society 
organized  in  families,  villages  and  unions  of  villages.  No 
member  was  to  own  anything  except  his  wife  and  children,  all 
earnings  were  pooled  and  stored  in  a  common  treasury,  or, 
where  they  were  in  kind,  in  common  granaries;  all  the  instru- 
ments of  labour  were  common  property,  and  as  many  as  twelve 
different  orders  of  officials  were  to  be  instituted  for  the  regu- 
lation of  rehgious  services,  of  social  economy  and  education  in 
conmion  schools  of  the  young.  Even  the  school-books  of  the 
children  were  provided  out  of  the  conmion  stock. 

The  scheme  is  detailed  in  an  article  written  by  Shchapov 
in  the  Delo  of  1867,  No.  10,  but  it  hardly  went  beyond  the 
Hmits  of  theory;  and  C.  V.  Maximovich  in  another  article  of 
the  same  journal  for  1867  tells  the  story  of  its  failure  in  practice. 
Popov,  who  was  a  Molokanye  of  the  following  of  Uklein,  began 
by  gaining  a  considerable  number  of  adherents,  who  were 
impressed  by  the  manner  in  which,  faithful  to  his  principles, 
he  gave  away  all  he  had  to  the  poor.  His  fame  spread  quickly 
among  the  Molokanye  beyond  the  Volga,  and  the  villages  of 
Yablonovoe  (Yablonovoe  gay)  and  Lake  Tyagloe  went  over 
to  him  en  masse.  The  inevitable  then  occurred.  Popov  was 
seized  by  the  Government  and  transported  from  the  Niko- 
laevski  province  of  the  Samara  Government  to  the  Caucasus 
along  with  a  number  of  his  adherents.  There,  in  spite  of 
poverty  and  distress,  they  attracted  new  adherents,  with  the 
result  that  the  leader  was  deported  afresh,  this  time  from 

327 


328  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

the  Government  of  Shemakhin  to  the  Menzelin  district  of  the 
Yenisei  Government  where  he  was  still  hving  as  late  as  1867 
in  the  Shushin  volost  or  county. 

The  ideal  of  the  sect  was  to  live  in  famihes,  but  to  pool  their 
work  as  also  their  goods  and  chattels.  Twelve  '  apostles '  were 
chosen  among  them,  at  whose  feet  they  were  to  lay  all  their 
property.  They  built  common  magazines,  and  appointed 
common  treasuries.  But  the  enthusiasm  which  originally 
inspired  their  renimciation  of  meum  and  teum  presently  died 
down,  as  it  did  in  the  case  of  the  early  Church,  and  they  had 
to  admit  to  themselves  that  "they  had  been  carried  away  by 
indiscretion";  at  least  such  is  the  report  of  the  Orthodox  Con- 
versationalist of  1859  (pp.  408  and  439).  It  was  too  lofty  and 
exacting  an  ideal  and  overtaxed  their  moral  energy.  The 
time  soon  came  when  they  judged  it  best  to  restore  to  each 
family  as  nearly  as  could  be  what  it  had  contributed  to  the 
common  stock  and  start  afresh  along  humbler  hues.  Yet  the 
essay  they  had  made  in  collectivist  communism  left  its  mark 
upon  them,  and  they  remained  after  they  gave  it  up  on  a  higher 
social  and  moral  level  than  they  were  before  they  attempted  it. 
They  still  retained  a  common  magazine,  in  which  each  head  of  a 
family  was  obliged  to  deposit,  for  the  use  of  the  poor,  a  tenth 
part  of  all  he  had,  in  money  or  in  kind.  Over  and  above  that, 
each  member  at  the  meetings  for  prayer  laid  what  he  could 
afford  in  a  plate  over  which  was  laid  a  napkin,  so  that  no  one 
could  criticize  his  neighbour's  benevolence.  In  all  this  they 
rose,  we  are  told,  well  above  the  level  of  most  Russian  peasants. 

Varadinov,  another  observer  of  their  communities,  relates 
in  the  History  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior,  (Vol.  viii,  p.  500) 
that  they  chose  an  official  called  'judge'  or  'almoner'  to  whom 
they  confided  the  money  thus  offered  for  him  to  distribute  it 
to  the  poor  and  indigent.  They  chose  other  officers  as  well  for 
the  regulation  both  of  their  refigious  services  and  civil  affairs, 
bearing  such  unusual  titles  as  conductors,  prayers,  clerks  or 
rhetors,  singers,  officers  de  secretis,  men  of  counsel  or  mentafists. 
Some  of  them  during  service  held  a  sort  of  spiritual  rank  and 
gave  the  blessing,  expoimded  the  Scriptures  when  the  prayers 
were  ended,  interpreted  their  meaning  for  the  past  and  future. 


COMMUNISTS,  STUNDISTS,  AND  SMALL  SECTS         329 

Out  of  church,  however,  they  became  again  ordinary  members 
of  the  community.  The  choice  of  these  officials  was  not  really 
popular.  They  were  nominated  by  their  predecessors  in  office, 
and  their  names  publicly  proclaimed. 

The  right  of  the  individual  to  interpret  Scripture  for  himself, 
so  wide  in  the  sister  sects,  is  hmited  in  this  one.  No  one  can 
undertake  the  task  in  the  meeting  without  informing  the 
'judge'  beforehand  of  what  line  he  will  take.  The  founder 
Popov  was  not  fond  of  being  contradicted,  nor  are  his  successors 
in  office;  and  obedience  to  officers  is  a  cardinal  duty  among 
them.  The  members  of  the  sect  are  forbidden  all  secular 
Uterature  and  only  allowed  to  study  the  Bible,  in  contrast  with 
the  disciples  of  Uklein. 

The  Communists,  of  course,  no  longer  deserve  their  name, 
since  they  long  ago  gave  up  Popov's  principles.  Maximov  in 
1867  counted  120  families  of  them  in  Nikolaievsk,  but  if  all  the 
Transcaucasian  members  of  the  sect  could  have  been  assembled 
in  one  place  there  would  have  been  645  famihes.  This  village 
Ues  near  Lenkoran,  surrounded  by  Armenians,  Tatars  and 
other  foreigners.  At  that  time  they  carried  on  httle  propa- 
ganda, and  indeed  in  their  situation  were  httle  able  to  do  so,  for 
the  Russian  authorities  prevented  their  holding  communica- 
tion with  European  Russia.  All  their  letters,  going  or  coming, 
were  opened  by  the  poUce. 

In  matters  of  creed  and  cult  the  Commimists  differ  little 
from  the  followers  of  Uklein,  but  out  of  them  issued  about  1830 
a  sect  of  rehgious  leapers,  forming  as  it  were  a  Unk  with  the 
Khlysty.  Lukian  Petrov  was  the  founder  of  these.  The 
Communists  are  reputed  by  Tolstoy,  who  described  them  in  an 
article  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Imp.  Soc.  of  Hist,  for  1864, 
bk.  4,  not  to  pray  for  the  Tsar.  Indeed  another  writer  in  the 
National  Records  {Otetch  Zap.  for  1878,  No.  10)  states  that  they 
called  the  government  the  Scourge  of  Antichrist.  They  are 
careful  about  the  schooling  of  their  children,  but  in  1850  their 
school  in  Nikolaievsk  was  closed  by  the  Holy  Synod,  as  a  centre 
of  heretical  infection.  Under  a  new  regulation  it  was  allowed 
to  continue,  if  the  teacher  was  appointed  by  the  local  governor, 
but  the  writer  in  the  Proceedings  just  above  mentioned  does 


330  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

not  know  if  the  sect  complied  or  not.  Ivanovski's  account  of 
this  sect  substantially  agrees  with  that  of  Uzov  and  the  sources 
I  have  cited,  but  he  gives  no  estimate  of  the  numbers  of  the 
sect  at  the  end  of  the  last  century.  Probably  they  were  very 
reduced. 

The  Righthand  Brotherhood  or  Zion's  Tidings 

Ivanovski  describes  this  obscure  sect  from  the  Orthodox 
Conversationalist  of  May,  1876,  the  Orthodox  Review,  June, 
1867,  and  the  Perm  Diocesan  Gazette,  1867,  No.  24,  and  from 
a  MS.  book  sent  him  by  an  examining  magistrate.  It  is 
probably  a  sect  as  feeble  in  numbers  as  its  tenets,  as  recorded 
in  this  work,  are  violent.  Its  founder  was  a  Staff-captain  of 
artillery  named  Ilin,  who  was  banished  in  1856  to  the  Solovets 
monastery;  previously  he  had  Uved  in  the  Baltic  provinces. 
At  the  end  of  the  last  centm-y  his  followers  were  chiefly  encoun- 
tered in  the  Governments  of  Perm  and  Ural.  His  book 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  gospel  by  them  is  partly  in  prose,  partly 
in  verse. 

The  main  source  of  his  inspiration  is  the  Apocalypse,  and  we 
have  pictures  of  the  destined  end  of  the  world  and  of  the 
Church  and  of  their  present  condition.  Like  the  Dukhobortsy 
this  sect  rejects  all  externals,  invocation  of  saints,  reUcs,  ecclesi- 
astical authority.  The  following  verses  contain  the  gist  of  the 
founder's  message : — • 

"Nor  churches  raise  of  stone,  nor  altars  rear. 

But  everywhere  God  glorify  and  fear. 

Your  priests  we  own  not, —  rites  away  we  fling, 
With  us  each  brother  is  a  saint  and  king." 

But  he  has  a  higher  Christology  than  the  Dukhobortsy,  who 
in  1816  informed  the  two  worthy  Quakers  who  visited  them  that 
Jesus  was  mere  man,  for  this  book  teaches  that  Jesus  Christ 
was  Jehovah  crucified,  God-man,  after  the  manner  of  the 
ancient  Patripassians. 

Ivanovski  declares  that  there  is  no  trace  of  Christianity 
in  the  book  save  the  name  Isus,  the  use  of  which  seems  to  indi- 
cate that  it  was  penned  under  the  influence  of  the  Old  behevers. 


COMMUNISTS,  STUNDISTS,  AND  SMALL  SECTS  331 

It  is,  however,  strongly  tinctured  with  Judaism,  for  it  inculcates 
the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  circumcision  and  disuse  of  pork. 
At  the  same  time  the  Jews  are  called  a  congregation  of  Satan, 
and  the  author  assails  the  Jews  of  Paris  in  particular! 

He  looks  forward  to  the  institution  of  a  Judaism  in  accord- 
ance with  the  New  Testament  and  beUeves  that  Jehovah  will 
soon  appear,  and,  after  separating  the  left  from  the  right  among 
us,  gather  the  latter  into  a  millennial  Kingdom  in  Judaea.  In  it 
"all  sorts  of  blessings  are  to  be  heaped  like  mountains  on  us, 
woods,  green  fields,  gardens,  honeycomb  and  fruit,  gold,  bronze 
and  silver,  gems.  There  will  be  no  barbaric  studies,  no  schools 
for  recruits,  no  violence  or  tricks,  no  reports-,  no  flattery  of  the 
authorities.  All  will  be  equal  and  of  one  rank,  no  police,  no 
judges,  everjrwhere  sanctity  and  common  people." 

The  Stundists 

More  important  is  the  sect  of  the  Stundists,  in  describing 
which  Ivanovski  rehes  mainly  on  the  Archpriest  Rozhdest- 
venski's  volume,  South  Russian  Stundism,  pubUshed  in  Peters- 
burg 1889,  and  the  Missionary  Troitski's  Refutation  of  the  errors 
of  Stundism,  Kiev,  1890. 

It  is  the  most  recent  of  the  widespread  Russian  sects  and  the 
only  one  clearly  due  to  German  influences;  it  is  mostly 
diffused  in  the  South  Russian  Governments,  especially  those 
of  Kherson,  Ekaterinoslav  and  Kiev,  where  towards  the  close 
of  the  XlXth  Century  it  had  begun  to  excite  the  attention  of 
priests  and  policemen.  Its  real  founder  is  said  to  have  been 
Jacob  Spener,  a  German  pastor,  who  died  1705.  He  encour- 
aged that  form  of  pietism  which  delights  in  meetings  where  the 
Bible  is  read  and  made  the  object  of  meditation,  and  he  insisted 
on  the  pious  devoting  certain  hours  (German  Stunde)  especially 
on  hoHdays  to  such  spiritual  exercises.  But  so  far  there  was  no 
separate  sect  or  reUgious  organization,  and  at  the  meetings  in 
Hamburg  and  elsewhere,  Lutherans,  Calvinist  and  Baptists 
mingled  together.  There  was  an  agreement  to  do  without 
formal  rites,  and  internal  spiritual  illumination  was  by  grace 
divine. 


332  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

In  1817  Stundism  was  carried  by  German  settlers  to  the 
steppes  along  the  Black  Sea  into  regions  where  the  dregs  of 
Dulioborism  and  of  the  Molokan  sect  still  hngered,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  bulk  of  them  had  been  transported  beyond 
the  Caucasus.    With  these  dregs  Stundism  rapidly  allied  itself. 

Ivanovski  admits  the  deplorable  reUgious  conditions  in  those 
regions  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  adduces  in  proof  the  testi- 
mony of  several  Russian  divines,  e.g.,  of  Bishop  Nicanor,  who 
declared  that  the  inhabitants  had  neither  churches  nor  religion. 
Children  and  young  people  received  no  religious  training  what- 
ever, the  educated  people  were  hbertines,  while  among  the 
common  people  vice,  drunkenness  and  dissoluteness  reigned 
unchecked.  He  admits  that  here  was  a  soil  favourable  for  the 
implanting  and  spread  of  a  sect  which  laid  stress  on  moraUty, 
and  that  Stundism  was  such  a  sect.  Its  earhest  Russian  con- 
verts and  propagandists,  Ratushnyi,  Tsimban,  Ryaboshapka, 
declared  that  before  they  joined  the  sect  they  had  led  a  disso- 
lute Ufe  and  "tasted  of  vice  in  all  its  forms." 

But  the  early  Stundists  took  up  no  hostile  position  against 
the  Orthodox  Church;  their  object  was  merely  to  moraUze  its 
members,  just  as  Wesley,  at  any  rate  to  begin  with,  had  no  idea 
of  founding  a  separate  sect  outside  the  Anglican  communion. 
In  the  Kherson  Government,  Bonekemipher,  a  reforming  pas- 
tor, exhorted  those  who  Ustened  to  his  preaching  not  to  desert 
the  Orthodox  Church,  but  only  to  adapt  their  hves  to  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  Gospel.  The  earher  preachers  of  the  movement  in 
Little  Russia,  Ratushnyi  and  Ryaboshapka,  and  Gerasim 
Balaban  and  Yakob  Koval  in  the  Government  of  Kiev,  worked 
along  the  same  hues;  and  it  was  only  about  1870  that  the  new 
pietists  organized  themselves  into  a  distinct  sect ;  till  then  they 
baptized  their  children  in  the  orthodox  churches,  confessed  and 
received  the  communion  in  them,  and  kept  the  Easter  fast. 

The  separate  movement  was  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Bap- 
tists or  Mennonites  of  South  Russia  and  the  Caucasus.  This 
explains  why  they  underwent  baptism  afresh,  no  doubt  be- 
cause they  regarded  infant  baptism  as  neither  scriptural  nor 
primitive.  Ivan  Ryaboshapka,  already  named,  was  the  first 
to  submit  to  the  rite  at  the  hands  of  Ephim  (Euthymius) 


COMMUNISTS,  STUNDISTS,  AND  SMALL  SECTS  333 

Tsimban.     Thenceforth  they  formed  a  sect  and  administered 
their  own  rites  of  baptism,  marriage  and  burial. 

Ivanovski  details  their  tenets  from  a  manual  of  the  Kosya- 
kovski  Stundists,  met  with  in  the  Tarashchan  district  or 
county  of  the  Kiev  Government.  It  contains  fifteen  sections, 
and  each  tenet  is  clearly  expressed  and  evidenced  by  texts 
from  scripture.  It  was  translated  from  a  German  original. 
Like  the  Molokanye,  they  profess  to  build  entirely  on  the  Bible, 
and  Uke  them  are  the  more  difficult  to  controvert  because  they 
interpret  a  text  which  prima  fade  is  against  them  by  the  Ught 
of  another  which  favours  their  views;  if  hard  pressed  they  even 
resort  to  allegory  in  order  to  get  out  of  a  text.  It  is  not  how- 
ever always  apparent  what  they  seek  to  evade  in  the  examples 
of  allegorization  adduced  by  Ivanovski.  For  example  they 
explain  Gethsemane  as  meaning  the  world,  the  Disciples  who 
went  to  sleep  are  those  who  are  sunk  in  reUgious  torpor  till 
they  become  Stundists,  while  those  who  rejected  and  crucified 
Jesus  are  the  orthodox  of  to-day. 

Their  tenets  are  a  mixture  of  the  Lutheran,  Calvinist  and 
Baptist.  Sin  was  originally  due  to  the  Fall  of  Man  and  they 
declare  man  since  the  fall  to  be  incapable  of  good  and  radically 
prone  to  evil.  With  the  Calvinists  they  hold  that  certain  souls 
are  elect  and  predestined  to  Salvation;  and  these  were  handed 
over  by  the  Father  to  the  Saviour,  as  the  reward  of  his  death 
struggle,  nor  can  they  ever  be  lost  or  taken  from  him. 

The  means,  however,  by  which  they  will  find  Salvation  are 
five :  the  first  is  the  Word  of  God  from  which  at  Baptism  they 
acquire  faith  in  Christ.  Baptism  is  the  second,  and  is  the 
first  fruits  of  faith  and  love  for  Christ,  a  triumphant  confession 
of  sin  forgiven  and  washed  away.  The  Breaking  of  Bread  is 
the  third,  for  in  this  Holy  Supper  we  spiritually  partake  of  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ.  The  fourth  is  the  Communion  of 
Saints,  the  supreme  expression  of  church  unity.  Fifth  and  last 
is  repentance  with  prayer;  but  repentance  with  a  pure  heart 
does  not  involve  absolution  pronounced  by  a  priest,  for  prayer 
is  more  efficacious  as  a  release  from  sin  than  is  that;  and  it  is  of 
two  sorts,  external  when  attended  with  sighs,  tears,  sorrow  and 
uphfted  hands;  internal- as  a  meditation  upon  God  and  the 
divine  verities. 


334  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

The  ecclesiastical  organization  of  the  Stundists  is  simple. 
They  have  no  bishops,  but  presbyters  are  chosen  by  the  faith- 
ful to  govern  and  administer  their  affairs,  teachers  to  preach. 
These  two  orders  can  baptize  and  serve  the  Eucharist,  assisted 
by  an  order  of  deacons  or  servers.  They  have  no  fixed  rites, 
but  church  service  begins  with  reading  and  interpretation, 
of  the  Bible,  then  hymns  composed  by  themselves  are  sung  to 
popular  airs  unlike  those  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  In  their 
assembly  they  sit,  but  sometimes  walk  up  and  down  debating 
the  sense  of  a  text.  They  recognize  none  but  adult  baptism, 
for  Jesus  (Mark  16  xvi)  prescribed  faith  as  the  sine  qua  non  of 
baptism.^  Accordingly  the  Stundists  re-baptize  those  whom 
they  convert  from  orthodoxy;  and,  following  the  Lord's 
example,  they  baptize  in  a  river. 

The  rite  of  breaking  bread  is  held  once  a  month,  in  the  presence 
of  all  the  Stundists  of  a  locahty.  It  begins  with  the  lections  of 
the  Last  Supper,  followed  by  hymns.  Then,  all  standing,  the 
presbyter  prays  to  the  Lord  to  deign  to  receive  his  body  in 
purification  from  sin.  The  deacon  next  brings  slices  of  bread 
on  a  plate,  which  the  presbyter  breaks  into  pieces,  communi- 
cates himself  and  others  in  them,  the  deacon  bearing  the 
morsels  to  the  faithful.  Next  they  sing  solemn  verses  about  the 
cup,  and  read  appropriate  lections  from  the  Gospel,  after  which 
they  communicate  in  the  wine.  The  rite  ends  with  a  prayer  of 
thanksgiving. 

All  other  rites  they  reject;  so  too  fasts,  which  they  say  are 
even  harmful,  for  a  man  is  more  likely  to  do  harm  when  he  is 
hungry,  and  it  is  not  that  which  enters  the  mouth  which  defiles 
us.  They  venerate  neither  cross  nor  ikon,  nor  commemorate 
the  dead.  Saints  they  refuse  to  invoke,  and  in  particular 
ridicule  the  cult  of  St.  Nicholas,  so  popular  in  Russia  On 
Good  Friday  even  the  poorest  among  them  eat  meat. 

There  is  a  minority  among  the  Stundists  who,  Uke  the  fol- 
lowers of  Uklein  and  the  Dukhobortsy,  renounce  all  rites  even 

*  Ivanovski  appeals  to  Mark  10  iv:  "Forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,"  forgetting  that  the  children  in  question  had  certainly  not 
been  baptized,  and  that  the  text,  if  it  has  any  bearing  on  the  point  at  issue,  is 
rather  an  argument  than  not  for  dispensing  with  baptism  altogether. 


COMMUNISTS,  STUNDISTS,  AND  SMALL  SECTS  335 

baptism  and  the  Eucharist,  insisting  that  Christianity  is 
something  wholly  spiritual.  Their  teaching  is  given  in  a 
manual  compiled  by  Jacob  Koval,  and  they  are  found  espe- 
cially in  the  province  of  Tarashchan  in  the  Kiev  Government. 
This  teacher  argued  that  the  baptism  of  Jesus  was  a  unique 
event.  ''We/'  he  said,  "do  not  frequent  the  banks  of  the 
Jordan,  but  are  purified  of  sin  by  being  baptized  into  the  death 
of  Christ.  With  him  we  die  and  rise  again,  but  not  by  water. 
The  communion,  they  argue,  of  which  Paul  wrote,  stands  in  the 
comimunication  of  the  Holy  Spirit  through  union  with  Holy 
Church.  In  it  we  are  fed  with  truth  and  peace.  The  Saviour 
was  the  word  made  flesh,  and  if  we  assimilate  the  Word,  he 
manifests  himself  in  us." 


Part  III 
THE  MYSTIC  SECTS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  KHLYSTY 

For  my  knowledge  of  the  mystic  sects,  the  Khlysty  and 
Skoptsy,  I  am  chiefly  indebted  to  the  monumental  work  of 
Professor  Karl  Konrad  Grass  of  Dorpat,  Die  Russischen  Sekten, 
Leipzig,  1905-1914,  and  to  his  Geheime  Heilige  Schrift  der 
Skopzen,  Leipzig,  1904.  His  account  of  the  Khlysty  fills  714 
pages  of  small  print,  that  of  the  Skoptsi,  some  1100,  and  every 
page  is  full  of  learning.  He  has  ransacked  the  Russian  archives 
in  order  to  present  us  with  as  complete  a  history  as  possible; 
and  on  dubious  or  disputed  points  he  sets  before  us  the  conclu- 
sions of  Russian  workers  in  the  same  field,  of  whose  works  he 
adds  a  copious  bibUography.  Too  much  praise  cannot  be 
lavished  on  a  work  embodying  so  much  research,  patient, 
exhaustive,  clearly  written  and  well-arranged.  It  was  almost 
superfluous  to  consult  other  sources,  but  I  have  paid  attention 
to  the  works  of  Ivanovski  and  Liprandi. 

The  tenets  of  the  Khlysty  have  no  more  relation  than  those 
of  the  Dukhobortsy  to  the  stereotyped  '  high '  Christology  of  the 
great  historical  churches.  In  the  Khlysty  hymns,  indeed,  recur 
in  plenty  such  terms  as  the  God  Sabaoth,  God  the  Father, 
Christ  son  of  God,  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Mother  of  God  —  this 
last  a  shibboleth,  as  is  well  known,  of  the  Council  of  Ephesus. 
But  in  the  Christian  Shamanism  which  here  hes  before  us  we 
breathe  another  atmosphere  than  that  of  the  speculative  doc- 
tors of  Byzantium,  remoulding  the  messianic  ideal  according 
to  the  categories  of  Greek  philosophy  and  suppressing,  so  far 
as  could  be,  its  pneumatic  and  prophetic  aspects.  The  real 
parallel  to  Khlystism  is  to  be  sought  in  some  of  the  earliest 
phases  of  our  Faith. 

In  that  widespread  form  of  Christianity  generally  called 
Adoptionism  the  Holy  Spirit  descends  from  heaven,  disguised 
in  the  simiUtude  of  a  dove,  to  take  possession  of  the  '  man  born 
of  men,'  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  was  singled  out  for  such  honour 

339 


340  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

because  of  his  having  kept  all  the  precepts  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets.  In  him  old  Jewish  prophecy  culminated.  But  the 
grace  of  prophecy  and  of  election  by  the  Spirit  did  not  end  with 
Jesus,  but  only  entered  in  him  on  a  new  cycle  of  development. 
The  same  Spirit  of  which  the  fullness  dwelt  in  him  descended 
afresh  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  this  time  with  tongues  of  fire 
and  even  odour  of  sanctity  upon  the  faithful.  They  too  by 
this  baptism  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  of  fire  became  elect  sons  of 
God,  spiritually  animated  Christs;  for  Christhood  was  not  the 
privilege  of  the  Founder  alone,  but  was  equally  the  guerdon  of 
his  followers.  In  this  early  stage  of  the  Christian  religion  there 
was  no  distinction  of  the  roles  of  Christhood,  of  Spirit,  of  divine 
Logos  or  Word.  Like  St.  Paul,  the  Adoptionists  felt  that  they 
had  died  and  risen  again  with  their  Master,  and  in  them  the 
Spirit  dwelt  and  spake,  not  merely  in  the  inarticulate  jargon 
of  tongues,  but  in  sober  discourse  as  well. 

In  the  earhest  phases  of  Christianity  we  have  also  the  same 
cult  of  virginity,  male  and  female,  as  among  the  Khlysty.  The 
student  knows  it  under  the  name  of  encratitism.  TertulHan 
felt  it  to  be  incompatible  with  the  spiritual  gifts  received  in 
baptism  for  a  Christian  to  continue  in  carnal  relations  with  his 
wife,  and  the  same  scruples  were  felt  a  century  later  in  the  age 
of  Augustine.  So  we  read  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles  of  the  Apostles 
taking  with  them  on  their  missionary  travels  sister-wives,  of 
the  brethren  of  the  Lord  doing  likewise,  of  the  converted  of 
Corinth  aspiring  to  practise  the  same  continency,  though,  it 
seems,  less  successfully.  Everywhere  in  the  Christian  htera- 
ture  of  the  early  centuries  we  come  upon  the  same  custom;  in 
Rome,  in  North  Africa,  in  Syria,  in  Anatolia  where  it  inspired 
many  of  the  poems  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  even  in  the  old  Celtic 
church.  It  underlay  the  chivalry  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  its 
idealized  mistresses,  it  inspired  Dante's  dream  of  Beatrice. 
To-day  it  is  spread  before  us  far  and  wide,  up  and  do^Ti,  the 
whole  of  Russia;  and  those  who  practise  it  call  themselves 
Christs,  a  title  of  honour  which  the  population  round  them  has 
perverted  by  a  pun  into  Khlysty  or  flagellants. 

As  then  among  the  Dukhobortsy,  so  among  the  Khlysty,  the 
cardinal  doctrine  is  that  of  the  reincarnation  of  Christ  in  the 


THE  KHLYSTY  341 

individual;  and  the  doctrine  often  assumes  the  form  of  a  belief 
that  at  the  death  of  one  of  their  Christs,  the  Christhood  passes 
into  the  body  of  another.^  But  this  must  not  be  interpreted 
in  the  sense  that  there  is  among  them  no  more  than  one  Christ 
at  a  time.  On  the  contrary,  almost  every  congregation,  every 
ship  or  nave  as  they  call  it,  has  its  own  Christ,  and  alongside  of 
him  its  Mother  of  God  or  Theotokos,  by  whom  is  signified  a 
female  consort  of  the  Christ,  like  him  plenarily  inspired  with 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  Khlysty  are  not  unacquainted  with  the  Old  Testament 
and  hold  that  the  ancient  Patriarchs  were  incarnations  of 
Christ,  just  as  Cyrus  was  a  Christ.  Even  the  burning  bush  in 
Exodus,  Ch.  3,  is  interpreted  as  a  parable  of  the  flesh  tenanted 
by  the  Spirit.  From  the  bush  it  entered  Moses,  and  after  him 
Joshua  and  other  spiritual  leaders  until  finally  the  Fire 
descended  on  Jesus  in  the  Jordan,  when,  as  the  old  Western 
text  relates,  a  light  shone  around  upon  the  waters.  The  oldest 
Epiphany  hymns  of  the  Eastern  Churches  make  much  of  this 
episode. 

Grass  (p.  256)  remarks  that  Russian  students  of  the  sect  at 
first  hand  recognize  as  its  tenet,  everywhere  and  always,  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  an  ordinary  man  until  he  was  thirty 
years  of  age,  his  birth  from  a  virgin  being  interpreted  to  mean 
that  he  was  brought  up  to  the  true  faith  by  his  mother.  In  the 
early  days  of  Christianity  we  equally  often  meet  with  the  idea 
that  the  holy  virginal  aeon,  the  Church,  preceded  Christ  and 
was,  spiritually  of  course,  his  mother.  So  TertuUian,  the 
Montanist,  recognized  in  the  Church  the  Mater  Domini  and 
in  his  physical  Mother  Mary  an  image  of  the  imbelieving 
Synagogue. 

After  a  forty  days'  fast  Christ  came  to  baptism,  and  then  the 
Spirit  of  God  descended  on  him,  whereby  he  was  anointed  the 
Christ.  This  ancient  tenet  was  attributed  by  Justin  Martyr 
(c.  140)  to  a  large  body  of  his  fellow-behevers.  Such  an  adop- 
tionist  opinion  underlay  the  old  gnostic  systems  of  the  second 
century  and  was  in  the  second  century  dominant  among  ortho- 
dox circles  in   Rome.     The  Khlysty  may  conceivably  have 

1  Grass,  p.  253, 


342  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

inherited  it  from  antiquity.  On  the  other  hand,  as  it  is  the 
apparent  sense  of  the  synoptic  gospels  i  they  may  have  merely 
inferred  it  from  a  study  of  those  documents. 

The  Khlysty  hold  that  Christ's  body  lay  in  the  grave  after 
his  death,  like  any  other  man's  body.  The  Resurrection  really 
means  that  the  Divine  Spirit  which  had  constituted  him  a 
Christ  was  bequeathed  by  him  to  successors  worthy  thereof. 

Thus  the  incarnation,  the  man-becoming,  or  as  the  Fathers 
termed  it,  the  enanthropesis  of  God  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  was  a 
filling  of  Jesus  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  was  only  the  first  of 
that  series  of  such  filfings  which  we  witness  in  the  Christian 
Church.  The  Khlysty,  no  more  than  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas, 
know  of  any  distinction  between  Christ  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Spirit.  They  are  essentially  a  pre-Trinitarian  sect,  though  in 
their  hynms  we  meet  with  tags  of  Trinitarianism  borrowed 
from  the  Orthodox  Church. 

The  Khlysty  naves  or  ships  form  a  loose  congeries  united  only 
by  the  cult  of  one  Danila  Philipov,  whose  legend  I  give  below 
and  whom  they  regard  as  their  proximate  founder  and  prophet. 
I  use  the  word  proximate,  because  Danila  only  hved  in  the 
second  half  of  the  XVIIth  Century,  whereas  their  hymns  ^ 
recognize  that  the  sect  is  as  old  as  Dmitri  Donskoi,  prince  or 
grand  duke  of  Moscow  from  1363  to  1389.  For  Dmitri  cruci- 
fied one  of  their  Christs  named  Averzhan  on  the  battlefield  of 
Kulikov;  another  of  their  hymns  also  celebrates  the  memory  of 
a  Christ  named  Yemeljan  who  suffered  under  Ivan  the  Terrible 
(1533-1584).  Danila  was  pre-eminent  among  their  spiritual 
founders  because  he  was  not  merely  Christ,  but  God  Sabaoth 
himself.  He  was  'godded,'  to  use  a  good  old  English  word, 
by  the  descent  of  God  himself  upon  him  out  of  the  seventh 
heaven  in  the  shape  of  a  bright  falcon.  As  an  incarnation 
of  God  himself,  Danila  precedes  in  dignity  all  the  Christs  and 
Mothers  of  God  of  the  sect. 

Such  identification  of  a  mere  man  with  God  himself  is  strange 
to  our  ears,  but  in  fact  Russian  peasants  are  not  far  removed 

^Except,  of  course,  that  the  Gospels  put  the  fast  after  the  Baptism,   not 
before  it. 
^  Grass,  p.  1. 


THE  KHLYSTY  343 

intellectually  from  the  oriental  populations  who  were  ready  to 
accept  an  Augustus  or  a  Tiberius  as  objects  of  divine  cult. 
They  style  even  their  ikons  bogi  or  "gods,"  as  Grass  remarks 
(p.  255).  The  men  of  Lystra  were  quite  prepared  to  add  Paul 
and  Barnabas  to  their  Pantheon,  and  we  have  seen  a  John  of 
Kronstadt  elevated  in  modern  Russia  into  something  higher 
than  an  ordinary  saint  of  the  calendar. 

The  question  arises:  what  are  the  credentials  of  a  Christ? 
How  is  he  to  be  recognized?  The  answer  is :  By  his  sufferings. 
Danila  the  Founder  was  crucified  at  least  twice  over,  and  the 
Russian  Government  was  certain  to  provide  this  test  for  many. 
The  rack  and  the  knout  were  ever  handy.  But  mortification 
of  the  flesh  by  the  candidate  for  Messiahship  is  no  less  essen- 
tial. Thus  Roman  Likhachov  late  in  the  last  century  was 
beheved  by  his  followers  in  the  Caucasus  to  have  fasted  for 
forty  days  on  end.  Some  time  before  1825  Awakum  Kopulov, 
a  peasant  of  the  Tambov  Government,  achieved  the  same  feat. 
Early  in  the  XVIIIth  Century  Ivan  Pimenov,  a  peasant  of 
Alatur  in  the  Nijni  Novgorod  Government,  attained  the  dignity 
by  walking  barefooted  through  the  forests  in  summer  and 
winter,  feeding  on  roots  and  shrouding  his  thoughts  in  a  per- 
petual mutism.  He  hved  to  be  a  hundred.  The  self-discipline 
of  silence  reminds  us  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana  and  the  Neo- 
Pythagoreans,  and  in  general  the  exaggerated  asceticism  of  the 
Khlysty  reminds  us  of  the  Indian  Fakhirs  and  of  the  monks  of 
the  Thebaid.  The  claims  of  rival  pretenders  to  Christhood  are 
settled  by  their  followers  who  watch  them  for  years  to  see  which 
of  them  imdergoes  the  worst  sufferings.  In  such  circumstances 
it  is  inevitable  that  the  ascetic  should  sometimes  trick  his  fol- 
lowers and  even  himself;  and  this  was  no  doubt  the  case  with 
Gregory  Shevshchenko,  who  died  and  came  to  fife  again  at 
Alexandropol  in  the  Ekaterinoslav  Government  about  the  year 
1889  to  the  surprise  and  deUght  of  his  adherents;  parallels 
will  occur  to  the  reader  of  Hindoos  buried  aUve  and  resuscitat- 
ing themselves. 

As  Grass  remarks  (p,  260),  all  these  exploits,  together  with 
the  self-glorification  which  attends  them,  seem  at  first  sight  to 
be  performed  at  the  cost  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  Ivan 


344  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Gregoriev  taught  in  Orlov  Gai  in  1858  that  the  Son  of  God  was 
not  in  the  historical  Jesus  Christ  alone.  Even  before  Christ 
he  was  in  the  Righteous,  and  in  the  same  way  He  has  subse- 
quently come  down  among  us  in  many  righteous  and  faithful 
ones.  In  such  teaching,  however,  we  have  Httle  more  than  a 
protest  against  the  Greek  Churches  which  insist  on  the  unique 
Divinity  of  Jesus;  the  sectaries,  if  they  were  better  read,  could 
adduce  on  their  side  the  testimony  of  Justin  Martyr  {dialogue 
with  Tryphon,  268)  that  there  were  Christians  in  his  day  who 
believed  Jesus  to  have  been  born  a  man  and  to  have  been 
anointed  and  become  Messiah  by  way  of  election;  or  of  Hege- 
monius  (Acta  Archelai)  who  takes  up  the  same  standpoint,  and 
assumes  that,  as  Jesus  for  his  merits  was  chosen  to  be  a  vessel 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  became  Christ  by  adoption,  so  were  the 
Apostles  and  the  faithful  in  general.  In  fact  they  do  not  yield 
to  ordinary  Christians  in  their  veneration  for  the  Man  of  Naza- 
reth. This  is  evident  from  their  hymns  which  address  Jesus 
as  the  Allmighty  and  heavenly  Lord.  Not  only  the  rank  and 
file,  but  their  Christs  equally,  invoke  him  in  prayer  as  God  the 
Father.  The  Virgin  Mary  is  equally  an  object  of  their  cult, 
none  the  less  solemn  and  sincere  because  they  venerate  their 
own  mothers  of  God. 

Two  of  their  hymns  reproduced  by  Grass  (p.  261)  from 
Barsov  illustrate  the  above  points.    The  first  is 

"Our  redeemer  Christ  hath  consummated  the  task  of  his  all 

purest   flesh, 
Yet  he  still  doth  consmnmate  it  in  other  elect  bodies  of  flesh. 
He,  ever  the  one  and  same  Christ,  God,  Saviour, 
Abideth  inseparably  with  the  Father  in  Heaven, 
Sendeth  his  Holy  Spirit,  through  whom  he  begetteth  Christ. 
We  are  the  earth  and  the  httle  world,  but  the  Son  is  Son  of 

God. 
He  riseth  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  love  him,  Uke  the  sun, 
He  riseth  up,  sets  not  again,  but  tarrieth  always; 
He  transmutes  his  Word  into  flesh,  whereby  he  redeemeth  the 

entire  world; 
The  believing  heart  knoweth  how  the  light  streams  forth. 
Then  doth  God  beget  Christ,  when  all  things  die  away. 


THE  KHLYSTY  345 

When  the  Son  of  God  shall  appear,  all  things  shall  be  changed, 

The  creature  shall  be  reborn,  shall  be  transformed  into  Christ, 

When  love,  pure  humility,  faith  and  patience 

In  us,  my  friends,  shall  prevail,  then  will  Christ  come  unto  us. 

Thou  the  only,  the  perfect,  the  word  made  flesh! 

Thou,  hypostatic  Son  of  God,  bom  before  world  and  time 

began ! 
Where  thou  wilt,  in  whom  thou  restest  —  thou  dost  manifest 

thyself!" 

The  second  is : — 
"The  Liberator,  who  is  come  into  the  world,  sent  from  God, 
He  Cometh  forward,  the  fair  sun;  open  ye  your  hearts! 
Open  them,  welcome  in  the  King  of  Glory, 
And  so  well  as  ye  may,  my  friends,  cleanse  your  hearts! 
In  heartfelt  penitence  humble  ye  yourselves. 
And  with  heartfelt  tears  wash  yourselves  clean! 
Be  ye  pure,  spotless,  as  the  children  of  God. 
Welcome  ye  the  heavenly  Ught,  unfold  the  petals  of  the  heart. 
Praise  ye  in  the  flesh  your  little  Father  akin  to  you. 
The  Word  of  God  was  made  flesh,  revealed  himself  among  us, 
In  his  fulness  it  was  revealed,  appeared  in  the  creature. 
It  dwelleth  together  with  us  and  instructeth  us. 
For  thee  are  temples  made  ready,  O  opened  heart, 
Come,  eternal  Ufe,  descend  into  our  hearts! 
Despise  not,  thou  Son  of  God,  our  blackness." 

But  in  this  sect  are  many  grades  of  holiness.  Danila  was 
God  of  Sabaoth  incarnate,  and  many  are  the  Christs  and 
Mothers-of-God,  presiding  over  the  various  ships.  But  the 
vessel  is  also  freighted,  Uke  the  Church  of  St.  Paul,  with  others 
who  in  their  measure  have  received  the  Gift  of  the  Spirit,  with 
Apostles,  Prophets,  Prophetesses,  People  of  God  in  general. 
All  are  elect,  all  have  the  grace  of  God,  but  all  are  not  in  the 
same  measure  endowed  with  the  spirit.  All  initiates  of  what- 
ever grade  of  sanctity,  are  admitted  to  the  meetings  which  are 
strictly  secret.  Then  are  chanted  the  hymns  of  which  I  have 
given  these  two  examples. 

And  these,  be  it  remarked,  for  anything  they  contain,  might 


346  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

equally  be  Dukhobor  compositions.  They  are  composed  in 
double  rhymes,  in  stately  rhythm  and  in  pure  well  chosen 
language.  Once  I  was  in  a  Russian  posthouse,  a  solitary  place, 
perched  high  upon  the  lofty  hills  which  confront  Ararat  across 
the  plain  of  Erivan.  It  was  a  clear  moonlight  night,  and  a 
troop  of  Russian  dissenters,  whether  Dukhobortsy  or  Molo- 
kanye  or  Khlysty  I  know  not,  came  marching  along  the  road, 
singing  in  parts  such  a  hymn  as  the  above.  It  was  the  most 
stirring  devotional  music  I  have  ever  listened  to,  transcending 
any  elaborate  Italianized  chorus  I  ever  heard  in  the  Kazan 
Cathedral  of  Petersburg.  St.  Augustine  describes  in  his 
inimitable  way  the  impression  which  the  devotional  music  of 
Milan  made  upon  him:  it  must  have  resembled  the  singing 
of  Russian  dissenters,  as  I  have  heard  it. 

Among  the  Khlysty  then  the  two  chief  sacraments,  the  essen- 
tials in  order  to  salvation,  are  firstly  mortification  of  the  flesh, 
sufferings  self-imposed  or  inflicted  by  a  Russian  Government 
ever  ready  to  inflict  them;  and  secondly,  reception  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  the  latter  comimonly  shews  itself,  as  it  shewed  itself 
in  the  early  Church,  in  the  form  of  trance,  of  ecstasy,  of  spiri- 
tual convulsions  and  contortions. 

The  Holy  Spirit  dwells  in  the  seventh  heaven  and  his  sudden 
clutch  of  the  devotee  is  Ukened  in  the  hymns  to  the  swoop  of  a 
falcon,  or  an  eagle,  seldom,  as  in  our  Gospels,  to  the  gentle 
downward  flight  of  a  dove.  The  mere  singing  of  hynms  suffices 
to  throw  some  of  the  faithful  into  an  ecstasy,  and  a  meeting 
commonly  begins  with  a  metrical  paraphrase  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  The  first  fines  of  this  in  what  Grass  (p.  265)  regards  as 
its  most  primitive  form  runs  thus : 

"Give  us,  Lord, 
To  us,  Jesus  Christ! 
Give  us,  Son  of  God, 
Light;  have  mercy  upon  us! 
Ruler,  Holy  Spirit, 
Have  mercy  upon  us! 
Lady  Ruler,  our  fittle  Mother! 
Ask,  Light,  for  us 
The  Light,  thy  Son, 


THE  KHLYSTY  347 

The  Spirit  of  God,  the  Holy  one! 

Light,  by  thee  are  redeemed 

Many  sinners  on  the  earth, 

Unto  the  Httle  Mother,  unto  our  Lady  Queen, 

Light,  unto  her  that  cherishes  us." 

There  are  a  hundred  other  hymns  which  contribute  to  the 
same  effect;  but  the  most  potent  means  to  produce  union  with 
the  spirit  is  the  rehgious  dance  known  as  Radenie,  a  word  which 
impUes  zeal,  labour,  fervour.  With  Russians,  emotion  as 
naturally  translates  itself  into  dancing  as  among  orientals; 
and  it  is  possible  that  the  Khlysty  imitate  in  some  degree  the 
Mahormnedan  Dervishes  of  whose  transports  they  were  eye- 
witnesses during  the  long  subjection  of  their  country  to  the 
Tatars.  Stephen  Graham  in  his  volume  upon  Russia  and  the 
World  (London,  1915)  has  a  graphic  picture  of  Russian  peas- 
ants dancing  which  reminds  us  of  some  of  the  Radenie. 

The  early  Christians  graced  every  festival  of  a  Saint  with 
"the  customary  dances";  ^  and  if  they  were  subsequently  for- 
bidden in  the  Spanish  and  other  Churches,  it  was  only  because 
they  were  irreverently  conducted  and  not  because  they  were 
objectionable  in  themselves.  Even  in  Spain  I  have  myself  wit- 
nessed the  graceful  dances  of  the  Acolytes  in  the  Great  Church 
of  Seville. 

The  following  is  an  example  of  the  hymns  which  among  these 
people  preludes  the  descent  of  the  Spirit : 

"Strings,  his  strings 
The  prophet  David  (smote)! 
The  prophet  played  upon  the  strings  — 
He  burst  into  tears; 
With  the  upper  Powers 
He  prayed  unto  Sabaoth: 
Have  mercy  on  me,  O  God! 
Pour  out  thy  grace  on  me! 
Mighty  are  the  graces 
Freely  bestowed  on  thee,  who  prayest! 
In  thy  sight  have  I  sinned, 

1  Ada  of  S.  Polyeuctes. 


348  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Before  thee  I  bow  myself  down, 

Give  me  faith,  hope  — 

To  thee  I  pray. 

By  thy  grace 

Am  I  for  ever  made  strong. 

Like  a  child 

I  am  anew  reborn. 

By  thy  holy  Spirit 

Am  I  now  swept  away  —  in  transport. 

With  us  have  they  assembled, 

In  the  assembling  place  the  assemblage, 

They  have  called  the  Spirit  down. 

They  have  shed  tears. 

They  have  dispersed  their  sins. 

In  themselves  they  have  awaited 

In  fear  the  King  of  Glory. 

And  all  with  one  accord 

Lifted  their  voices  to  heaven: 

Float  down,  Son  of  God, 

Good  Spirit,  guide! 

As  in  earUer  days 

A  roar  was  heard  from  heaven, 

Thou  \mto  thine  elect  ones 

In  fiery  tongues  descendest. 

Thus  in  thy  speech  to  be  heard  by  all 

From  that  day  unto  this." 

Picture  the  surroundings :  it  is  the  evening  of  one  of  the  many 
feasts  of  the  Russian  Church,  for  a  gathering  of  people  on  such 
a  day  is  least  likely  to  excite  the  attention  of  the  pohce.  The 
meeting  is  held  in  a  long  whitewashed  chamber,  with  benches 
along  the  walls,  and  to  one  side  there  is  a  table  on  which  is  set 
loaves  and  a  jug  of  water  or  of  mild  and  unintoxicating  kvas, 
the  elements  of  the  Khlysty  Eucharist.  Such  is  the  scene  of  the 
rites  to  follow.  The  faithful  enter;  they  have  shed  their  heavy 
cloaks  and  foot-gear;  for  when  you  enter  a  Russian  house  you 
leave  your  over-boots  at  the  door  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the 
floor  here,  like  that  of  a  mosque,  is  holy  ground.  Men  and 
women  alike  are  clad  in  a  white  flowing  raiment,  and,  as  in  the 


THE  KHLYSTY  349 

sister  sect  of  Skoptsy,  each  carries  a  white  handkerchief  to  be 
waved  aloft  in  the  dance  in  imitation  of  an  angel's  wings.  They 
approach  in  couples  the  presiding  Christ  or  Mother  of  God,  and 
prostrate  themselves  before  them  in  token  that  God  and  Christ 
are  in  them  made  flesh.  They  probably  listen  to  a  little  homily 
against  the  use  of  intoxicants  and  tobacco,  against  backsliding 
and  on  the  duty  of  guarding  in  silence  even  on  the  rack  and 
under  the  lash  the  mysteries  of  the  sect.  In  the  XVIIIth 
Century  innumerable  monks  and  nuns  from  orthodox  convents 
frequented  such  meetings,  and  with  them  may  have  originated 
in  the  sect  the  practice  which  sporadically  continues  to-day  of 
burning  incense  before  the  suspended  ikons  and  of  adoration 
paid  to  the  Cross  hung  in  a  corner  of  the  chamber. 

The  homily  finished,  the  dance  begins,  at  first  an  orderly 
circular  dance  in  which  men  and  women  join  hands;  all  are 
singing  the  Prayer  of  Jesus  given  above  in  alternation  with 
other  hymns.  Faster  and  faster  revolves  the  human  circle, 
more  animated  become  the  vocal  strains,  and  presently  they 
burst  into  a  chorus  recalling  that  of  the  Bacchae  in  the  ancient 
mysteries  of  Dionysus: — 

"  Past  us  in  paradise  a  bird  is  hovering, 
It  flies  amain. 
To  yonder  side  it  glances, 
Where  the  trumpet's  blast  ^  is  heard, 
Where  God  himself  is  speaking: 
O  God,  0  God,  O  God, 
O  Spirit,  0  Spirit,  O  Spirit! 
Float  down,  down,  down! 
Oi  Yega!    Oi  Yega!    Oi  Yega!^ 
It  floated  down,  it  floated  down, 
The  Holy  Spirit,  the  Holy  Spmt! 
'Twill  blow  where  it  will,  where  it  listeth. 
The  Holy  Spirit,  the  Holy  Spirit. 

0  I  burn,  0  I  burn. 

The  Spirit  burns,  God  burns! 

1  The  trumpet  means  the  Christ  or  prophet  presiding  over  the  scene. 

2  Perhaps  the  pronimciation  is  yeha,  an  abbreviation  of  the  name  Jesus. 


350  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Light  is  in  me,  Light  is  in  me, 
The  Holy  Ghost,  the  Holy  Ghost! 
O  I  burn,  burn,  burn. 
Ghost!  Oi  Yegd!     (four  times) 
Yev6ye!  Host  Ye  vol  (thrice) 

Soon  isolated  figures  detach  themselves  from  the  throng  and 
spin  round,  like  Dervishes,  with  incredible  rapidity.  Others 
begin  to  stamp,  kick,  hop,  leap,  shriek;  all  are  bathed  in  sweat, 
all  are  foaming  at  the  mouth,  all  are  gesticulating  wildly,  all  are 
ejaculating  such  phrases  as  :  Oi  Duyh,  Oi  Dukh,  Svkatoi 
Duch,  Okh,  okh,  okhl^ 

It  is  a  final  token  of  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  that  they  drop 
exhausted  and  inanimate  on  the  floor,  insensible  to  external 
impressions.  On  such  occasions  they  have  failed  to  notice 
the  entrance  even  of  the  hated  poUce  in  their  chamber;  or,  if 
they  have  been  warned  in  time,  they  have  fled  barefooted  in 
their  scanty  garments  to  their  homes  across  fields  of  snow  in 
forty  degrees  of  frost  and  suffered  no  harm  thereby. 

But  some  under  the  intoxication  of  the  Spirit  begin  to  speak 
with  tongues,  which  it  is  the  task  of  others  to  interpret.  Even 
these  uncouth  utterances  are  often  marked  by  rhythm  and  fall 
into  rhymed  verses,  but  not  always  as  the  following  inharmon- 
ious specimen  shews  :^ 

Nasontos,  Lesontos,  phurtlis,  natruphuntru,  natrisinphur, 
Ej-eserephire,  Kresentrephert,  tscheresantro,  ulmiri,  umilisintru, 
gereson,  drowolmire,  tschesondro  phorde,  kornemila,  koremira, 
g^drowolne,  korlemire  s'drowolde,  kaniphute,  jeschetschere 
kondre,  nasiphe  nasophont,  meresinti,  pheretra. 

Such  is  the  tongue  talked  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  Russia,  and  it 
especially  affects  a  combination  of  consonants  nt  rare  in  the 
normal  speech.  Harnack  has  conjectured  that  the  gibberish 
of  the  old  Greek  and  Egyptian  magic  papyri  was  taken  down 
from  the  lips  of  devotees  fallen  into  a  rehgious  trance,  and  these 
utterances  of  the  Khlysty  go  far  to  confirm  his  conjecture. 

Khlysty  of  whom  the  Spirit  has  taken  possession  and  who 
have  subsequently  revealed  their  experiences  to  the  profane,  are 

>  "Ho  Spirit,  Spirit,  Holy  Spirit,  Ho,  Ho,  Ho." 
*  Grass,  p.  123  whose  transliteration  I  follow. 


THE  KHLYSTY  35I 

agreed  that  in  such  moments  its  advent  is  marked  by  a  feeling 
of  profound  inward  exaltation  and  joy.  They  are  no  more 
themselves,  the  normal  man  or  woman  is  dead  in  them,  their 
hearts  flutter,  their  tongues  are  stirred  by  the  new  soul  within 
them,  they  are  raised  into  the  seventh  heaven,  are  in  paradise, 
they  even  see  God  and  the  angels  face  to  face.  So  the  Bogomils 
of  the  Xlth  and  XII  Centuries  had  ocular  visions  of  the 
Trinity.  Occasionally,  Uke  the  second  century  Montanist 
prophetess  Maximilla,  they  are  conscious  of  being  God  and 
cry  out  to  that  effect.  Such  'enthusiasm'  was  almost  normal 
in  Christians  before  A.  D.  250  and  sporadically  continued, 
especially  among  monks  and  nuns.  Of  such  ecstasy  many  of 
the  Khlysty  hymns  are  the  fruit.  They  are  the  utterances  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  speaking  in  the  flesh;  taken  down  in  writing 
or  faithfully  remembered,  they  form  in  their  entirety  the  Dove 
Book  {Kniga  Goluhina),  which  like  the  hymns  of  the  Dukho- 
bortsi,  takes  precedence  in  the  matter  of  inspiration  even  of 
the  New  Testament;  though  no  doubt  the  Bible,  especially  the 
Book  of  Sirach  and  the  Gospels,  is  held  in  high  reverence. 
The  former  was  the  only  old  Jewish  scripture  recognized  by 
the  Manicheans  and  Cathars,  no  doubt  because  the  Jews 
rejected  it,  and  these  sects  inherited  the  anti-Semitic  bias  of 
Marcion.  For  those,  however,  who  are  recipients  of  the  Dove 
Book  the  Bible  is  really  superfluous,  save  in  so  far  as  it  serves 
to  confirm  their  faith,  which  by  dint  of  allegory  its  most  refrac- 
tory passages  may  be  made  to  do.  For  example  they  interpret 
the  veil  of  Moses  as  the  holy  estate  of  matrimony,  which  they 
regard  as  did  the  Cathars,  as  being  no  better,  perhaps  worse 
than  adultery;  'the  greater  adultery'  was  the  Cathar  expres- 
sion for  it. 

The  Khlysty,  male  or  female,  so  thoroughly  repudiate  worldly 
marriage,  that  on  initiation  they  take  a  spiritual  wife  or  hus- 
band. Not  that  the  wife  of  the  unregenerate  phase  is  wholly 
discarded;  for  she  often  continues  to  sleep  in  chastity  in  her 
husband's  bed,  in  company  with  the  spiritual  wife;  but  her 
children,  born  of  sin,  are  denominated  in  the  argot  of  the  sect 
'httle  sins,  whelps,  young  cats,'  and  are  not  allowed  to  call  their 
parents  father  and  mother.    At  initiation  every  Khlyst  swears 


352  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

to  eschew  orthodox  marriage  and  not  to  attend  a  christening. 
They  teach  that  if  God  desires  a  virgin  to  conceive,  he  will 
impregnate  her  with  his  Holy  Spirit  as  he  did  Mary  the  Mother 
of  Christ.  In  spite  of  such  behefs,  however,  they  illogically 
insisted  on  the  line  of  their  founder  Danila  Philippovich  being 
maintained  for  some  generations  in  the  ordinary  manner  until 
his  last  female  descendant  was  immured  by  the  Russian 
Government  in  a  convent,  where  she  was  inaccessible.  After 
that  their  devotion  to  his  memory  centred  in  his  relics,  his  hat, 
stick,  the  rags  he  wore  and  hairs  of  his  head. 

In  their  diet  they  are  very  abstemious.  They  eschew  meat, 
like  the  Skoptsy  (a  branch  of  their  sect),  because  flesh  is  the 
product  of  copulation;  at  least  this  is  their  reason  according  to 
Liprandi  {Raskolov  Eres',  1853,  Leipzig  Ed.  of  1883,  p.  29). 
The  reason  is  probable  enough,  for  the  Cathars  also  gave  it; 
and  it  is  perhaps  the  real  basis  of  the  Catholic  rule  of  fasting. 
But  the  Khlysty  illogically  forbid  fish  as  well,  which  being 
bom  in  the  water  had  not  the  same  taint  for  the  Cathars  or  for 
the  early  Christians,  who  for  that  reason  made  it  the  symbol 
of  Jesus  bom  again  the  Christ  in  the  waters  of  Jordan, — 
Piscis  natus  aquis  as  the  old  Latin  Christian  poet  has  it.  Like 
the  Molokanye  and  no  doubt  the  Dukhobortsy,  the  Khlysty 
abjure  the  onion  and  garUc,  because  they  interfere  with  the 
odour  of  sanctity  which  they  detect  in  one  another.  They 
also  avoid  potatoes,  a  prejudice  they  have  in  common  with 
many  Old  beUevers,  who  beUeve  it  to  be  the  identical  fruit  with 
which  Eve  tempted  Adam.  That  the  foreign-minded  Catha- 
rine II  introduced  it  from  the  West  was  enough  to  condemn  it; 
and  for  a  like  reason  they  abhor  tobacco.  Both  are  'western 
poison.' 

Khlysty  girls  enthusiastically  uphold  the  Encratite  rule  of 
spiritual  wedlock,  and  regard  a  man's  legal  wife,  assumed 
before  he  entered  the  order,  as  a  Gift  of  the  Devil.  The  ascetic 
life  they  pursue  gives  to  the  members  of  the  sect  a  pecuhar 
look  by  which  they  are  easily  recognized.  No  one  who  has 
encountered  them  will  forget  their  deep-set  intensely  gleaming 
eyes,  their  spare  emaciated  frames,  their  reposeful  manner. 
They  seem  to  have  dropped  out  of  another  world  into  this  one. 


THE  KHLYSTY  353 

They  have  been  accused  of  endmg  theu-  radenia  or  religious 
dances  with  wholesale  debauchery,  the  hghts  being  first  put  out. 
Grass  examines  the  evidence  very  carefully  and  impartially, 
and  rejects  the  story  as  calumny.  The  only  thing  that  gives 
it  colour  is  that  often,  when  the  ecstasies  are  over,  the  exhausted 
votaries  drop  dowTi  on  the  floor  and  sleep  tUl  dawn,  the  men  on 
one  side  of  the  apartment,  the  women  on  the  other.  Their 
doing  so,  instead  of  going  home  at  once,  is  a  necessity  dictated 
either  by  the  climate  or  by  fear  of  the  Russian  poUce,  whose 
suspicions  would  be  roused  if  they  trooped  home  at  a  late  hour.^ 
Tertullian,  after  he  became  a  Montanist,  accused  the  Catholic 
deacons  of  deflowering  the  deaconesses  at  the  close  of  their 
agapes;  but  no  ecclesiastical  historian  whoUy  credits  his  story, 
although  no  doubt  the  then  prevailing  custom  of  virgines  suhin- 
troductae,  i.  e.,  of  nuns  living  for  the  sake  of  protection  or  human 
sympathy  with  monkish  priests  and  laymen,  occasionally  gave 
rise  to  such  abuses  as  Gibbon  satirizes  and  Cyprian  attests. 
That  this  may  occur  among  the  Khlysty  also  is  undeniable, 
but  those  in  a  position  to  judge  admit  it  to  be  rare.  The  same 
stories  were  current  in  Medieval  Europe  about  the  Cathars, 
and  with  equally  little  reason.  Still  more  horrible  stories  are 
told  of  the  Khlysty  communicating  in  the  blood  of  a  baby  boy 
bom  to  one  of  their  virgins  and  so  forth.  The  ancient  Jews 
accused  the  early  Christians  of  such  Thyestean  banquets,  and 
so  did  the  pagan  populace.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages  the 
Catholics  accused  the  Jews  of  them,  and  rival  monastic  orders 
even  charged  one  another  with  them.  In  Russia  the  same 
tradition  of  anti-Semitic  calumny  prevails  to-day.  Only 
just  before  the  war,  the  orthodox  were  offering  up  prayers  all 
over  Russia,  and  especially  in  the  Kazan  Cathedral  in  their 
capital,  for  the  conviction  of  a  miserable  Jew  accused  in  Kiev 
of  murdering  a  Christian  child  for  ritual  purposes.  Such 
superstitions  are  hard  to  kill  in  Russia,  which  in  many  respects 
remains  medieval.  There  every  Jew  is  believed  to  bear  the 
brand  of  Cain,  not  on  his  brow,  where  it  could  be  seen,  but 
under  his  clothes  on  his  breast.     Grass,  then,  examines  this  sort 

1  In  a  peasant's  izba  or  hut  it  Is  usual  for  both  sexes,  old  and  young,  to  repose 
together  on  the  top  of  the  stove  during  the  long  winter. 


354  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  story  about  the  Khlysty  with  his  accustomed  thoroughness, 
setting  all  the  evidence  in  full  before  us,  and  no  one  will  wade 
through  it  and  not  dismiss  it  with  contempt.  The  extraor- 
dinary secrecy  with  which  for  two  and  a  half  centuries  the 
sect  has,  under  pain  of  being  knouted,  exiled  and  burnt  alive, 
concealed  its  rites,  often  under  the  cloak  of  devout  adherence 
to  the  Orthodox  Church,  sufficiently  accounts  for  the  genesis 
of  such  stories. 

From  their  outward  show  of  orthodoxy  and  perhaps  from  the 
circumstance  that  in  the  XVIIIth  Century  their  cult  flourished 
so  vigorously  inside  convents  and  monasteries,  certain  orthodox 
observers  agree  that  they  regard  the  Greek  Church  as  a  sort  of 
vestibule  to  their  mysteries.  They  are  the  perfecti,  the  com- 
mon church  man  is  only  an  auditor  or  catechumen.  But  their 
affectation  of  orthodoxy  is  at  best  a  screen.  At  the  most, 
observes  Grass  (p.  348),  the  Khlysty  would  allow  that  the 
Orthodox  Church  witnesses  even  against  its  will  to  their  own; 
but  in  reality  they  utterly  reject  it  with  all  its  sacraments. 

They  hold  that  if  the  Orthodox  Church  has  any  super- 
natural role,  it  is  a  purely  satanic  one.  They  are  the  only 
Apostolic  Church,  the  true  successors  of  the  holy  Martyrs  whom 
the  kings  of  the  earth  persecuted  of  old,  as  to-day  the  Orthodox 
"Jews  and  Pharisees"  persecute  the  Khlysty. 

Having,  like  the  Dukhobortsy  and  the  Cathars,  a  baptism  of 
the  spirit,  they  reject  the  water  baptism  of  John  as  an  institu- 
tion that  with  the  advent  of  Christ  lost  its  significance.  Like 
the  Hydroparastatae  and  other  followers  of  Tatian,  numerous 
in  the  early  church,  they  refuse  to  use  wine  in  their  communion, 
for  wine  renders  the  sacrament  sinful  and  fleshly.  Observers 
have  recorded  of  them  that  when  they  go  to  church  and  partake 
of  the  village  pope's  cup  of  wine,  as  the  law  forces  them  to  do 
at  least  once  a  year,  they  retain  it  in  their  mouths  till  they  can 
quit  the  church  and  spit  it  out.  What  they  signify  by  the 
simple  meal  of  bread  and  water  is  not  clear;  we  have  seen 
that  the  IMolokanye  retain  it,  while  disclaiming  for  it  any  sacra- 
mental significance;  nor  is  it  intelligible  that  alongside  of  the 
plenary  inspiration  of  the  Radenie  it  could  possess  any  for  the 
Khlysty. 


THE  KHLYSTY  355 

Russian  authorities  (eunumerated  by  Grass,  p.  278)  declare 
that  in  one  form  of  the  Radenie  the  sectaries  dance  round  and 
round  a  tub  full  of  water,  for  which  reason  they  are  in  some 
places  popularly  known  as  Kadushniki  from  kadushka,  a 
small  tub.  As  they  dance  round  it,  flagellating  themselves, 
they  sing  a  refrain: — 

I  scourge,  scourge,  I  seek  Christ. 

Come  down  to  us,  Christ,  from  the  seventh  heaven. 

Circle  with  us,  Christ,  in  the  holy  ring, 

Hover  down  from  heaven.  Lord,  Holy  Ghost ! 

There  is  no  fire  beneath  the  tub,  yet  presently  it  begins  as  their 
fervour  waxes,  to  simmer  and  bubble.  A  vapour  rises  off  it, 
and  amid  the  vapour  in  a  nimbus  of  golden  Ught  they  discern 
a  child,  or  a  mother  and  a  child.  Some  relate  that  not  a  child, 
but  a  dark  bird,  like  a  raven,  is  materialized  in  the  steam. 
The  votaries  when  they  see  the  apparition  fall  prostrate  in 
ecstasy  and  terror. 

That  they  conduct  some  such  dance  round  a  tub,  seems  too 
w^ell  attested  for  us  to  doubt  it.  I  beUeve,  if  it  exists,  it  may  be 
a  relic  of  the  Epiphany  consecration  of  water  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  in  Jordan  upon  Christ. ^  The 
raven  variant  is  bred  of  their  common  comparison  of  the  Spirit 
to  a  falcon  or  an  eagle.  In  the  Great  Churches  a  stoop  of  water 
is  consecrated  for  use  in  baptisms  etc.  on  this  festival.  For  the 
excited  dancers  to  have  such  a  vision  is  natural  enough. 
Stranger  miracles  are  worked  every  day  among  ourselves  by 
mediums  in  spiritualist  seances.  It  would  be  enough  for  one 
votary  to  cry  out  that  he  saw  it,  and  all  present  would  behold  it 
too. 

The  prophecies  indulged  in  by  those  of  whom  the  Spirit  takes 
possession  on  such  occasions,  are  of  the  naive  and  homely  char- 
acter we  might  expect  among  Russian  peasants.  The  prophet 
foretells  what  the  weather  is  going  to  be,  whether  the  crops  will 
fail  or  whether  there  will  be  a  bumper  harvest, —  matters  of 

1  Cp.  the  old  Slavonic  rite  (translated  from  a  lost  Latin  text)  of  exorcising  the 
waters  at  Epiphany,  published  by  Franz  Radic  from  a  Curzola  MS.  of  c.  1400,  in 
Wissenschaftliche  Mittheilungen  aus  Bosnien  und  der  Herzegovina,  Wien  1894,  p. 
179  foU. 


356  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

great  concern  in  Russia.  They  also  forecast  the  take  of  fish  in 
the  rivers,  conflagrations  of  individual  cabins  or  entire  villages, 
which  in  Russia  are  mostly  built  of  wood.  They  also  predict 
persecutions  by  the  Government,  a  class  of  event  which  could 
be  safely  predicted  at  any  time  and  anywhere.  Sometimes 
the  predictions  relate  to  the  death  of  members  of  the  sect  or  to 
their  sins.  All  sorts  of  devices  are  employed  by  the  prophet 
to  shadow  forth  the  future,  and  there  are  rules  for  interpreting 
his  actions,  no  less  than  his  utterances.  For  example,  he  swings 
a  lamp  to  and  fro :  if  it  remains  alight  all  present  are  blameless ; 
if  it  goes  out,  someone  has  sinned.  Or  he  takes,  says  Grass 
(p.  287),  all  the  handkerchiefs  which  they  waved  as  they  danced, 
and  lays  them  together  in  the  form  of  a  cross  on  the  floor. 
Then  all  step  over  them,  but  if  anyone  trips  and  touches  the 
pattern  with  his  toe,  he  is  a  sinner  and  must  do  penance.  Grass 
enumerates  other  equally  simple  forms  of  old-world  ordeal. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  in  the  old  Russian  codes  the  ordeal 
was  much  in  evidence,  and  the  peasantry  still  believe  in  it. 
Among  ourselves  it  has  survived  as  an  innocent  method  of 
fortune-telling  familiar  to  folk-lorists. 

Auricular  confession  of  sins  to  the  Christ  or  Prophet  or 
Mother  of  God  appears  to  be  in  vogue  among  all  the  groups  of 
Khlysty  who  exist  under  various  popular  names  all  over  the 
Russian  empire.  In  some  groups  a  simple  form  of  spiritual 
marriage  exists;  as  also  simple  rites  for  the  initiation  of  novices, 
though,  be  it  remarked,  the  Radenie  is  the  only  proper  form 
of  reception  of  the  spirit.  We  have  also  hints  of  a  rite  of 
anointing  for  the  sick  and  of  funeral  ceremonies. 

The  origin  of  the  Khlysty  is  lost  in  antiquity,  but  Uzov  and 
Grass  are  clearly  right  in  supposing  it  to  be  a  form  of  Bogo- 
mUism  at  least  as  old  in  Russia  as  the  prevalent  orthodoxy. 
Russian  divines  who  regard  Western  Europe  as  the  home  of 
rationaUsm  derive  it  from  that  quarter;  but  it  has  nothing  in 
common  with  the  Protestant  Reformation ;  it  has  affinity  with 
the  gospel  of  Madame  de  Guyon,  and  it  resembles  externally 
the  Avignon  Brotherhood  of  the  end  of  the  XVIIIth  Century, 
the  Enghsh  Quakers,  the  Russian  freemasons;  but  all  these 
points  of  contact  are  superficial.  Still  more  ineffective  is  the 
attempt   of  Russian  anthropologists  to   derive   it   from  the 


THE  KHLYSTY  357 

Shamanism  of  the  Finns,  displaced  by  the  Muscovite  Slavs  so 
far  as  the  latter  did  not  blend  and  become  one  race  with  them, 
only  imposing  on  them  their  language  and  religion. 

The  determining  factors  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  any  discus- 
sion of  their  origin  are  their  Adoptionist  Christology  and  their 
disciplina  arcani.  But  neither  of  these  necessarily  implies, 
as  Grass  imagines,  a  gnostic  origin,  for  the  Great  Church  was 
largely  adoptionist  until  the  age  of  Paul  of  Samosata,  as  are 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  themselves;  and  the  disciplina  arcani 
was  maintained  in  the  church  long  after  it  had  lost  its  meaning 
and  importance.  The  gnostic  sects  were  Adoptionist  because 
they  grew  up  within  an  early  Christianity  that  was  dominantly 
such.  As  regards  the  disciplina,  it  is  difficult  to  say  just  how 
far  it  is  in  the  case  of  a  Russian  dissenting  sect  due  to  persecu- 
tion and  how  far  traditional. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Khlysty  themselves  recognize  their 
sect  to  be  older  than  their  God  Zebaoth,  or  Sabaoth,  Danila, 
whose  memory  and  relics  are  sacred  to  all  its  branches.  He 
probably  found  the  idea  of  divine  incarnation  current,  put 
himself  forward  as  a  signal  example  of  it  and  found  devoted 
followers  to  accept  his  claims  to  godship.  The  descent  of  the 
Spirit  on  him  took  place  at  a  fixed  date  and  in  a  particular  spot. 
He  was  a  peasant  of  the  Government  of  Kostroma,  and  lived 
during  the  reign  of  Alexis  Michailovich  (1645-1676).  He  had 
deserted  from  the  Army,  and  is  said  to  have  been  a  Bezpo- 
povets  and  a  follower  of  Kapiton,  after  whom  one  of  the  Priest- 
less  groups  was  called.  He  could  write  and  read,  possessed 
Old-believer  books  and  was  recognized  as  a  teacher.  As  he 
stood  on  the  hill  of  Gorodina  in  the  Volost  of  Starodub  in  the 
Government  of  Vladimir,  the  God  Zebaoth  descended  on  clouds 
of  fire  in  a  fiery  car,  with  his  cortege  of  angels,  seraphim  and 
cherubim,  and  took  possession  of  his  all-holy  and  pure  person. 
Thus  Danila  became  the  living  God.  None  of  his  successors 
have  risen  above  the  level  of  Christs,  Prophets  or  Mothers  of 
God.  This  second  advent  —  the  first  was  in  Jordan  —  took 
place  in  1645,  a  date  which  conflicts  with  the  tradition  that  he 
was  an  Old-believer;  perhaps  the  last  year  of  Alexis's  reign 
should  have  been  assigned  rather  than  the  first. 

Danila  began  his  preaching  in  the  Staraya  village,  30  versts 


358  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

from  Kostroma,  and  called  his  home  the  house  of  God,  his  fol- 
lowers the  people  of  God.  Presently  he  removed  to  Kostroma, 
the  New  Jerusalem  of  the  sect,  and  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
the  Dove  Book  had  superseded  all  Church  books,  he  threw  all  he 
could  find  of  the  latter  into  the  Volga.  This,  it  is  said,  caused 
the  Patriarch  Nikon  to  imprison  him  in  a  dark  cell  in  the 
Bogoyavlenski  cloister.  Escaping  thence  back  to  Kostroma, 
he  delivered  to  his  followers,  like  Jehovah  on  Sinai,  his  Twelve 
Commandments,  as  follows : — 

1.  I  am  God,  foretold  of  the  prophets,  and  am  come 
down  to  earth  a  second  time  to  save  men's  souls. 
There  is  no  other  God  than  I. 

2.  There  is  no  other  teaching  but  mine.  Seek  ye  none 
other. 

3.  Whereunto  ye  are  appointed,  abide  therein. 

4.  Keep  God's  commandments,  be  ye  fishermen  of  the 
world. 

5.  Drink  no  intoxicant,  commit  no  sins  of  the  flesh. 

6.  Marry  not.  He  that  is  married  shall  live  with  his 
wife  as  with  his  sister,  as  is  declared  in  the  old  scrip- 
ture. Let  the  un wedded  wed  not,  the  wedded  sepa- 
rate. 

7.  Utter  not  foul  words  nor  black  speeches  (i.  e.  invoca- 
tions of  the  Devil) . 

8.  Go  not  to  weddings  or  baptisms,  nor  frequent  drink- 
ing resorts. 

9.  Steal  not.  If  a  man  steal  but  a  single  kopeck,  it  shall 
in  the  dread  judgment  be  laid  on  his  skull,  and  when 
the  coin  melts  in  fire  on  his  head,  and  not  before,  shall 
he  gain  remission  of  his  sin. 

10.  Keep  these  rules  in  secret,  reveal  them  not  even  to 
father  or  mother,  and  even  if  men  scourge  thee  with 
whip  or  burn  thee  with  fire,  bear  it.  So  doing  the 
true  shall  after  the  pattern  of  the  old  martyrs  win 
heaven,  and  on  earth  spiritual  satisfaction. 

11.  Visit  one  another,  practise  hospitality  (lit.  bread  and 
salt),  practise  charity,  keeping  connnandments,  pray 
to  God. 

12.  Have  faith  in  the  Holy  Spirit. 


THE  KHLYSTY  359 

Fifteen  years  after  his  Epiphany  at  Gorodina,  Danila  begot 
a  spiritual  son  after  the  manner  of  St.  Paul.  This  was  Ivan 
Timofeyevich  Suslov,  the  son  of  Timofe  and  Irina,  respectable 
people  of  the  neighbourhood.  The  legend  is  that  Irina  was  a 
hundred  when  he  was  born,  and  that  he  was  her  firstborn.  He 
was  Jesus,  incarnate  over  again,  and  in  his  thirty-first  year 
received  Godship  at  the  hands  of  Danila,  after  being  for  three 
days  translated  with  him  to  heaven.  This  incident  took  place 
at  Staraya;  returning  to  Michailizy  on  the  River  Oka,  Suslov 
chose  twelve  apostles  and  a  Mother  of  God.  His  brothers 
became  his  disciples,  and  began  to  spread  the  cult  of  Danila 
along  the  banks  of  the  Oka  and  the  Volga.  When  his  fame  as  a 
thaumaturge  spread  abroad,  the  Tsar  Alexis  seized  hun  and 
handed  him  too  over  to  Nikon  who  sent  him  to  the  boyar 
Morisov;  the  latter  recognizing  that  he  was  a  divine  being, 
excused  himself  from  trying  him  on  the  ground  of  ilbiess.  The 
Tsar  then  set  the  boyar  Odoyevski  on  to  him,  who  racked  him 
with  irons  and  fire,  but  failed  to  extract  from  him  any  statement 
of  his  faith.  In  the  end  Suslov  was  crucified  on  a  Friday,  and 
rose  from  the  dead  the  following  Sunday.  Then  the  Tsar 
seized  him  afresh  and  flaying  him,  crucified  him  afresh.  A 
virgin  had  kept  his  skin  which  he  donned  afresh  only  to  be 
crucified  a  third  time.  Apparently  these  crucifixions  occupied 
a  considerable  space  of  time,  and  it  was  only  Natalia  Kirillovna, 
the  wife  of  the  Tsarevich  Peter  (the  Great)  who  finally  put 
an  end  to  them.  That  is  why  the  sect  honours  her  pictures  as 
those  of  a  saint.  In  some  of  the  hymns  Suslov's  rescue  is  set 
down  to  successful  bribery  by  Danila  or  his  followers. 

Thus  freed,  Suslov  continued  to  teach  in  Moscow  for  thirty 
years,  living  in  a  good  house  behind  the  Sukharev  tower. 
Danila  at  Kostroma  heard  of  his  success  and,  though  aged  one 
hundred  years,  went  to  visit  him.  On  January  1,  1700,  at  the 
conclusion  of  a  long  service  of  dancing,  on  the  day  of  St.  Basil, 
Danila  in  the  presence  of  all  the  occupants  of  the  New  Jerusa- 
lem, as  Suslov's  house  was  called,  went  bodily  up  to  heaven. 
But  according  to  a  rival  legend  his  body  was  buried  in  the  vil- 
lage Kriushino  in  the  Government  of  Kostroma.  Fresh 
persecutions,  however,  were  in  store  for  Suslov.  He  fled  from 
Moscow,  but  returned,  and  after  three  years  ascended  into 


360  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

heaven,  though  he  also  left  his  body  behind  on  earth.  Peter 
the  Great,  according  to  the  Khlysty,  changed  the  beginning 
of  the  civil  year  to  January  1,  because  Danila  died  on  it! 

The  hmits  of  this  work  forbid  me  to  follow  Grass  into  his 
examination  of  the  above  legend,  which  I  have  given  in  outline, 
and  as  it  is  embodied  in  many  hymns.  After  all  its  main  inter- 
est lies  m  the  glimpses  it  furnishes  of  the  mentality  of  the  sect. 
It  is  clearly  designed  to  suggest  a  parallelism  between  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  founders  of  the  sect. 

There  can  in  the  nature  of  things  be  no  reliable  statistics  on 
the  strength  of  the  Khlysty  and  of  the  Skoptsy,  their  congeners. 
Pobedonostsev,  with  his  customary  effrontery  estimated  them 
together  in  his  religious  census  of  1903  at  3,887  souls,  although 
in  the  statistical  tables  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  they  were 
aheady  as  early  as  1863  reckoned  at  110,000.  The  two  sects 
together  may  safely  be  to-day  reckoned  at  300,000.  They  are 
specially  numerous  in  the  Caucasus,  where  they  are  called 
Shaloputy. 

Their  increase,  admitted  by  all  authorities,  depends  on  their 
preaching  and  teaching  only,  and  in  the  Baltic  provinces  they 
convert  not  a  few  Lutherans.  Their  sobriety  and  mutual 
charity  render  the  Khlysty  sect  attractive.  They  are  careful 
of  education,  and  in  the  Caucasus  the  converted  send  their 
'little  sins'  to  the  orthodox  schools.  Their  economic  life 
resembles  that  of  the  peasants  in  general,  and  they  adhere  to 
the  ancient  four  field  system  with  common  tillage.  No  one 
starves  among  them,  they  help  one  another  in  misfortune,  and 
having  rich  merchants  among  their  converts,  they  never  want 
funds.  A  single  rich  convert  has  been  known  to  rebuild  an 
entire  village  which  had  been  burned  down,  merely  because 
there  were  a  few  Khlysty  in  it.  Their  charity  is  extended  to  the 
orthodox,  partly  to  disarm  the  suspicions  of  the  Holy  Synod; 
but  their  industry,  intelligence,  purity  of  life,  self-respect  are 
acknowledged  by  the  most  hostile  observers.  They  will  not 
practise  usury  among  themselves  nor  do  they  ever  carry  an 
internal  dispute  before  any  of  the  tribunals  of  the  State. 
Their  leaders  settle  it  for  them.  They  are  clean  in  person  and 
in  dress,  and  the  inns  or  rest-houses  which  they  keep,  especially 
in  the  Caucasus,  are  models  of  tidiness  and  sobriety. 


THE  KHLYSTY  361 

The  lines  of  the  diffusion  of  Khlystism  are  difficult  to  deter- 
mine. The  legend  of  Danila  estabhshes  that  in  the  last  half 
of  the  XVIIth  Century  it  already  flourished  both  in  Vladimir 
and  Kostroma  as  well  as  in  Moscow.  The  earliest  inquisition 
began  by  discovering  in  Moscow  in  January,  1733,  as  many  as 
78  adherents;  in  July,  222  more.  In  all  over  300  were  con- 
demned, 5  of  them  to  death,  the  rest  were  knouted  or  had  their 
tongues  cut  out,  were  sent  to  hard  labour  in  Orenburg  and 
Siberia,  shut  up  in  monasteries,  etc.  As  many  as  80  of  them 
were  monks  or  nuns,  50  merchants  or  craftsmen,  100  peasants. 
One  of  the  ladies  condemned  belonged  to  the  nobility. 

In  1745-1752  followed  a  fresh  inquisition  also  in  Moscow, 
presided  over  by  the  notorious  Grinkov.  Victims  were  racked 
every  day,  searing  with  hot  irons  being  the  most  approved 
method  of  torture.  Five  were  burnt  alive  in  public,  26  con- 
demned to  death,  the  rest  to  the  knout,  deprivation  of  their 
noses,  exile,  etc.  In  all  454  were  punished,  among  them  70 
monks  and  nuns  and  a  few  of  the  clergy,  50  merchants  and 
craftsmen,  over  300  peasants;  of  the  victims  only  164  were 
residents  in  Moscow,  the  rest  mostly  from  the  upper  Volga. 
These  data  prove  that  about  1700  the  sect  was  mostly  confined 
to  Moscow,  where  many  converts  harboured  it.  After  the 
second  persecution  the  members  fled  in  numbers  from  Moscow 
and  carried  their  tenets  rapidly  to  all  points  of  the  compass. 
In  1746  we  hear  of  it  in  Petersburg,  and  in  Alatur  to  the  East. 
By  the  year  1775,  the  history  of  the  Skoptsy  reveals  it  in  some 
strength  in  the  city  of  Tula. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SKOPTSY 

It  remains  to  describe  the  Skoptsy  whose  fame  has  spread 
outside  Russia  and  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numerical 
importance ;  this  being  what  one  would  expect  of  a  sect  whose 
history  interests  the  criminologist  at  least  as  much  as  it  does 
the  analyst  of  religion.  About  1770  there  were  some  thousand 
Khlysty  in  Tula,  divided  into  several  'ships'  or  congregations, 
all  of  them  recognizing  an  aged  woman  Akulina  Ivanovna  as 
their  Mother  of  God.  Under  her  were  ranged  prophets  and 
prophetesses,  one  Anna  Romanovna  being  the  chief  of  the  latter 
Her  prophecies,  as  usual,  concerned  fisheries  and  fields,  and 
her  fame  in  prediction  extended  even  outside  the  sect.  She 
had  the  merit,  however,  of  discovering  the  religious  value  of 
one  SeUvanov,  They  seem  to  have  lacked  a  Christ  in  Tula 
at  the  time,  and  we  only  hear  of  a  chief  prophet  Philimon,  who 
in  spite  of  his  own  spiritual  ambitions  was  constrained  by  the 
spirit  to  acclaim  Selivanov,  his  rival,  as  his  superior,  just  as 
St.  John  acclaimed  Jesus.  The  congregations  danced  on 
ground  measured  off  for  them  by  the  prophets,  who  prophesied 
in  the  name  of  God  or  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Thus  Anna  Roma- 
novna, like  Priscilla,  exclaimed  in  the  spirit  of  the  faithful, 
''Why  have  ye  not  found  me,  God,  and  seen  where  I  dwell?  " 

These  details  come  from  Selivanov's  autobiography,  com- 
mitted long  afterwards  to  writing,  and  from  it  we  also  learn  that 
marriage  was  rigorously  forbidden  in  the  Tula  'ships';  Seli- 
vanov alludes  to  the  good  old  times,  i.  e.,  of  Danila  and  Suslov, 
which  were  revived  when  he  became  the  Christ. 

Selivanov  found  matter  for  criticism  in  the  behaviour  of  his 
co-sectaries.  They  were  too  lax  in  their  morals;  and  this  is  his 
own  account  of  why  they  quarrelled  with  him,  delated  him  to 
the  Government  and  slew  his  spiritual  offspring  Martin. 

The  name  under  which  this  obscene  fanatic  is  venerated  by 
the  Skoptsy  is  Kondrati  Selivanov.     His  real  name  was  Andrei 

363 


364  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

Ivanov,  and  on  one  occasion  he  called  himself  Simeon,  in  order 
to  evade  pursuit.  He  also  passed  himself  off  as  a  Kiev  monk. 
We  have  a  contemporary  picture  of  him  in  a  writ  for  his  arrest 
issued  in  August,  1775,  when  Catharine  II  was  residing  in 
Moscow.  He  is  described  as  of  middling  height,  of  pale  com- 
plexion, sharply  cut  nose,  reddish-yellow  hair,  almost  beardless, 
about  fifty-three  years  of  age,  shorn  in  the  peasant  style  and  in 
the  same  stjde  dressed,  and  withal  a  Skopets  (emasculated). 
Some  time  before  the  year  1772  Kondrati,  faithful  to  the  text 
Mat.  19,  xii,  and  convinced  that  baptism  by  spirit  and  by  fire 
connoted  no  less,  emasculated  himself  with  a  hot  iron.  He 
claimed  in  his  later  life  to  have  done  the  deed  when  he  was 
fourteen,  i.  e.,  about  the  year  1736;  but  his  own  followers 
believed  he  was  a  man  of  forty  at  the  time.  He  was  a  peasant 
of  Stolbov  in  the  Oryol  Government  and  a  serf  of  Prince  Kante- 
mir.  By  his  own  testimony  he  was  a  Khlyst  beforehand,  hav- 
ing been  converted  to  that  sect  by  a  woman,  Akulina  Ivanovna, 
who,  after  her  convert  became  a  "  Christ,"  if  not  before,  became 
herself,  by  the  fact  of  having  converted  him,  a  Mother  of  God  or 
Theotokos.  His  first  converts  were  certainly  members  of  the 
sect,  and  that  he  began  his  new  gospel  inside  its  pale  is  shewn 
by  the  fact  that  he  himself  initiated  as  a  Khlyst  one  of  his 
earliest  adherents,  Alexander  Ivanovich  Shilov.  His  original 
programme  was  merely  to  supplement  the  encratite  rule  of  the 
Khlysty  and  raise  a  barrier  against  its  infraction.  From  an 
ukase  of  Catharine  II  dated  July  2,  1772,  our  earliest  document 
respecting  the  new  sect,  we  know  that  it  had  by  that  time 
gained  many  adherents.  Catharine  describes  it  as  a  new  sort 
of  heresy  that  had  appeared  among  the  peasants  in  Oryol,  and 
instructs  Prince  Volkov  that  it  is  best  to  nip  in  the  bud  such 
rash  follies  and  save  innocent  people  from  such  chicanery. 
The  author  or  authors  of  it  are  to  be  seized,  knouted  and  sent 
to  Nerchinsk  in  Siberia;  the  preachers  are  to  be  beaten  with 
rods  and  sent  to  work  on  the  fortifications  of  Riga;  the  mere 
dupes  to  be  sent  home  to  their  masters,  if  they  are  private  serfs, 
to  the  crown  estates,  if  royal  serfs. 

At  that  date  Kondrati  had  already  mutilated  or  caused  to  be 
mutilated  as  many  as  thirteen  peasants  in  Bogdanovka,  and 


THE  SKOPTSY  365 

was  conducting  his  propaganda  in  the  provinces  of  Orlov  and 
Tula.  Presently  he  was  arrested,  tried  with  his  chief  associates 
at  Sosnovsk  in  Tambov  and  exiled  to  Siberia,  where  he  began 
to  pass  himself  off  as  Peter  III,  who  had  been  murdered  by  his 
own  wife,  Catharine  II,  on  July  19,  1762.  His  assassination 
was  shrouded  in  some  mystery,  as  such  deeds  usually  are ;  the 
episode  of  the  False  Dimitri's  proves  how  easy  it  is  in  Russia  for 
a  pretender  to  a  royal  name  to  get  himself  accepted  by  the 
crowd.  Nor  was  Kondrati  the  only  claimant  to  the  honour  of 
being  the  murdered  man.  In  1773  a  Don  Cossack,  Pugachev, 
was  able  to  raise  a  peasant  revolt  by  assuming  his  style  and 
title.  Five  years  before  a  Serbian  adventurer,  Stephen  the 
Little,  had  posed  as  Peter  III  and  in  that  guise  grasped  for 
himself  the  principality  of  Montenegro. 

Such  a  pretension  may  naturally  have  been  accepted  in 
Siberia,  but  it  is  odd  that  they  were  accepted  twenty  years 
later  in  the  best  circles  of  Petersburg  society,  when  the  Empe- 
ror Paul  (1796-1801)  had  brought  him  back  to  the  capital. 
There  he  was  at  first  interned  in  a  home  for  lunatics,  but  later 
on  the  mild  and  enlightened  despot  Alexander  I  (1801-1825) 
released  him,  and  at  the  request  of  rich  Skoptsys  and  in  particu- 
lar of  his  chamberlain,  Elianski,  allowed  him  to  live  in  a  hostel 
and  acquire  the  rank  of  a  free  citizen.  As  such  he  took  the 
name  Selivanov.  He  was  now  more  at  liberty  than  before  to 
conduct  his  propaganda  of  baptism  by  fire  and  spirit,  and  with 
his  own  hand  mutilated  as  many  as  100  adults.  His  adherents 
now  collected  his  reminiscences  and  miracles  in  a  work  known 
as  The  Passion  which  circulates  widely  among  them  and  has 
been  translated  by  Grass  in  its  entirety.  It  is  worth  study, 
being  full  of  autobiographic  touches. 

This  lurid  impostor  now  Uterally  took  Russia  by  storm. 
People,  not  by  any  means  of  the  humblest  rank,  crowded  from 
all  over  the  country  to  visit  and  venerate  him,  and  returned 
to  their  homes  bearing  relics  of  him  in  their  bosoms;  his  nail 
parings,  hairs,  bath  water,  clothing,  all  was  carried  off  and 
found  to  be  endowed  with  magical  powers :  Every  Skopets 
carried  as  an  amulet  a  silver  rouble  of  Peter  III,  burned  tapers 
before  the  picture  of  the  murdered  Prince,  prostrated  himself 


366  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

and  said  his  prayers.  The  same  worship  is  still  accorded  all 
over  Russia  to  his  relics,  and  in  the  ecclesiastical  archives  are 
stored  not  a  few  of  his  portraits,  seized  at  various  dates  by  the 
police.  Grass  reproduces  one  of  the  most  characteristic  of 
them,  made  when  he  was  already  an  old  man.  It  is  a  convinc- 
ing likeness,  forcible  but  gruesome.  The  small  mouth,  the 
determined  lips,  the  piercing  eyes,  are  those  of  a  fanatic  who 
must  have  exercised  a  mesmeric  power  on  all  who  approached 
him.  His  eyes  and  expression  remind  one  of  those  of  George 
Whitefield  in  the  portrait  hung  in  Mansfield  College  at  Oxford. 
Whitefield  in  his  letters  was  wont  to  describe  himself  as  ''this 
tottering  tabernacle."  His  portrait  barely  gives  us  such  an 
impression  of  him. 

The  crowds  that  flocked  to  see  Selivanov  and  the  number 
of  his  victims  at  last  excited  the  suspicions  of  the  Russian 
Government,  and  in  1810  he  was  forced  to  sign  an  undertaking 
to  drop  his  peculiar  propaganda.  He  continued  it  however, 
and  his  lodging  was  known  as  the  House  of  Davidov  (House  of 
the  Son  of  David) ,  that  of  his  prophetess  Anna  Saf  onovna  as  the 
monastery  of  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God.  Officials  of  the  Army, 
civil  service,  even  the  clergy  succumbed  to  his  dupery.  In 
1818  the  Government  again  interfered  and  banished  two  of  his 
intimates  to  the  monastery  of  Solovets ;  but  this  only  confirmed 
his  own  and  their  presumption.  Finally  the  authorities  in  the 
hope  of  circumscribing  the  movement  sent  him  in  1820  to  the 
Spaso-Efimovski  cloister  in  Suzdal,  which  at  once  became  a 
holy  place  and  resort  of  Skoptsy  pilgrims.  Pains  were  now 
taken  to  repress  them  and  the  leader  died  in  1830. 

But  the  faithful  discredit  his  death,  and  believe  he  will 
reappear  alive  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Irkutsk,  to  inaugurate 
the  Millennium,  as  soon  as  the  tale  is  complete  of  the  144,000 
of  the  elect  of  the  Apocalypse  (14,  iv)  which  ''were  not  defiled 
with  women,  for  they  are  virgins.  These  are  they  which  follow 
the  Lamb  whithersoever  he  goeth.  .  .they  are  without  blem- 
ish." Such  texts  the  Skoptsy,  as  many  other  fanatics  have 
done  before  and  after  them,  interpret  of  their  own  nave  or  ship, 
as,  following  the  Khlysty,  they  denominate  their  sect.  He  is 
believed,  as  many  Skoptsy  documents  seized  in  the  Inquisition 


THE  SKOPTSY  367 

of  1843  and  on  later  occasions,  reveal,  to  be  still  alive,  to  be 
indeed  the  living  God.  When  at  his  second  advent  he  reaches 
Moscow,  he  will  sound  the  big  bell  of  the  Uspenski  Cathedral. 
Regiment  on  regiment  will  then  join  him,  to  prevent  the  wolves 
from  any  more  tearing  of  the  sheep.  Ships  will  arrive  for  his 
children  freighted  with  gold  and  jewels. 

The  apocalyptic  number  of  the  elect  is,  according  to  Grass 
and  other  competent  observers,  not  far  short  of  completion. 
For  the  sect  is  reputed  to  number  at  least  100,000  and  is  ex- 
traordinarily active.  How  many  of  these  are  '  perfect '  members 
and  'without  blemish'  is  not  known,  but  being  great  traders 
and  usurers,  they  can  be  detected  even  by  the  eye  of  a  foreigner 
in  every  bazaar  in  Russia,  where,  as  Leroy-Beaulieu  observes, 
everyone  can  see  them,  except  as  a  rule  the  police  whom  they 
bribe  to  ignore  their  presence.  Being  knit  together  in  mutual 
charity,  being  ascetics,  thrifty  and  unencumbered  with  families, 
they  have  been  able,  like  certain  monastic  orders,  to  accumulate 
great  wealth;  and  the  mere  fact  that  they  cannot  waste  money 
on  mistresses  recommends  them  in  so  corrupt  a  society  as  that 
of  Russia.  Financial  magnates,  who  have  important  credit 
transactions  to  conduct,  can  trust  them,  just  as  a  rich  Turk 
trusts  his  harem  with  their  Mahommedan  analogues.  Neverthe- 
less they  are  often  driven  out  of  Russia  by  the  police  into 
neighbouring  countries,  especially  Roumania,  where  many  of 
the  droshki  drivers  of  Bucharest  can  be  recognized  as  members 
of  their  sect,  and  where  the  Government  seldom  molests  them, 
because  for  a  Latin  race  their  tenets  have  no  attraction. 

The  Skoptsy  rites  are  in  general  identical  with  those  of  the 
Khlysty;  they  meet  and  adore  one  another  and  sing  their 
hymns,  and  dance  until  they  fall  into  ecstasy  and  begin  to 
prophesy.  But  the  Radenie  or  ritual  dance  has  not  among 
them  quite  the  same  sacramental  value  as  among  the  Khlysty. 
The  rite  of  emasculation,  baptism  with  fire  and  spirit,  is  their 
supreme  sacrament.  Their  Christology  is  adoptionist  like 
that  of  the  Khlysty.  Jesus  was  an  ordinary  man  who  was 
replenished  with  grace;  and  after  his  resurrection,  his  grace 
descended  mto  Peter  III  who  is  head  and  defender  of  the  faith. 
But  Jesus  was  the  first  of  the  White  Doves,  as  they  call  them- 


368  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

selves,  for  he  too  emasculated  himself.  This  rite  is  the  sole 
mode  of  redemption  and  means  of  grace.  There  is  ground  for 
thinking  (Grass,  p.  655)  that,  like  the  Cathars,  they  do  not 
believe  in  the  Crucifixion  as  an  historical  event,  and  wholly 
reject  the  tenet  that  Jesus  rose  and  ascended  in  the  flesh  into 
heaven  and  sat  down  on  the  right  hand  of  God.  On  the  con- 
trary, his  body  rotted  in  the  tomb.  In  all  this  they  agree  with 
the  Khlysty,  from  whom  they  inherited  their  earhest  hymns  and 
whose  sacred  poetry  has  supplied  them  with  their  models. 

Wherever  they  spread,  they  formed  naves  or  Korahlya,  pre- 
sided over  by  Christs  and  prophets,  male  and  female.  Their 
rigorous  asceticism  and  simulation  of  orthodox  piety  often 
leads  the  Russian  clergy  into  the  error  of  regarding  them  as 
good  Christians,  and  enables  the  officials  and  police  whom  they 
perpetually  bribe,  to  pretend,  when  the  truth  transpires,  that 
they  thought  they  were  orthodox.  They  never  touch  meat 
and,  like  the  Cathar  elect  ones,  the  men  never  go  near  or  touch 
women,  if  they  can  help  it,  even  those  of  the  sect.  Meat  they 
religiously  eschew,  urging,  as  the  Cathars  did,  that  it  is  the 
fruit  of  copulation.  But  they  ignore  the  orthodox  rules  of 
fasting  and  eat  eggs,  milk  and  cheese  in  Lent.  Nevertheless, 
as  Leroy-Beaulieu  remarks,  their  disgust  for  generation  is  no 
more  due  to  pessimism  than  was  the  same  scruple  in  Origen 
and  in  some  early  Christian  circles  that  practised  emascula- 
tion. That  they  are  so  singularly  addicted  to  money-making 
does  not  savour  of  an  oriental  pessimism. 

There  are  other  details  of  their  origin  or  rather  superstition 
which  are  necessary  to  complete  my  account  of  them,  but  which 
I  would  rather  reproduce  in  the  polished  idiom  of  the  accom- 
plished French  writer  I  have  just  named,  than  translate  into 
oiu'  own  coarser  tongue. 

"Ce  n'est  point  d'ordinaire  sur  les  jeunes  enfants  que  les 
Skoptsy  pratiquent  leur  rite  fondamental ;  c'est  le  plus  souvent 
sur  les  hommes  faits,  alors  que  le  sacrifice  est  le  plus  dur  et 
I'operation  la  plus  dangereuse.  Cette  sanglante  initiation  a 
parfois  plusieurs  degres:  la  mutilation  est  complete  ou  incom- 
plete; suivant  Tun  ou  Tautre  cas,  elle  porte,  chez  les  sectaires, 
le  nom  de  sceau  royal  ou  de  seconde  purete.     Les  femmes 


THE  SKOPTSY  36^ 

n'echappent  pas  toujours  a  I'horrible  bapteme.  Pour  elles, 
la  mutilation  n'est  pas  obligatoire;  beaucoup  cependant,  lors 
de  leur  admission  parmi  les  '  colombes '  regoivent  les  stigmates  de 
la  secte  et  le  sceau  royal,  qui  est  le  signe  de  I'entree  au  nombre 
des  purs.  Chez  elles,  les  Skoptsy  paraissent  s'en  prendre 
plutot  a  la  faculte  de  nourrir  qu'a  la  faculte  d'engendrer.  Le 
sein  nouvellement  form^  de  la  jeune  fille  est  ampute  ou  defigure, 
sa  poitrine  soumise  a  une  sorte  d'odieux  tatouage.  Parfois  les 
deux  mamelles  sont  entierement  enlevees.  Chez  quelques 
femmes  le  fer  des  fanatiques  va  plus  loin,  il  s'attaque  a  des 
organes  plus  intimes,  sans  que  le  plus  souvent  ces  incisions^ 
executees  par  des  mains  ignorantes  rendent  les  malheureuses 
qui  les  subisent  incapables  d'etre  meres.  Des  proces  ont  mis 
en  lumiere  ces  outrages  a  la  nature  humaine.  On  a  discute 
devant  la  justice  les  precedes  chirurgicaux  employes  pour  ces 
detestables  ceremonies.  Les  juges  ont  vu  de  vieilles  femmes 
octogenaires  et  des  jeunes  filles  de  quinze,  de  dix-sept,  de  vingt 
ans  toutes  diversement  deformees  par  le  couteau  ou  les  ciseaux 
fanatiques." 

He  adds  that  similar  mutilations  of  women  were  common  in 
pagan  Russia  and  occur  to-day  among  some  Finnish  tribes. 
They  are  in  vogue  in  Dahomey  among  the  so-called  'Amazons.' 
In  Skoptsy  circles  a  boy  grows  up  with  the  certainty  of  what  is  to 
happen  to  him,  for  needless  to  say  many  of  the  males  have 
begotten  children  before  they  underwent  the  rite,  and  these 
unfortunates  remain  in  their  power.  An  adult  who  refuses  to 
submit  is  dogged  by  the  members  of  a  sect  diffused  all  over 
Russia  and  in  the  long  run  is  assassinated  unless  he  submits. 
The  Sicarii  of  ancient  Judaea  would  waylay  a  pagan  who  had 
expressed  approbation  of  their  monotheist  tenets  and  circum- 
cize  him  against  his  will.  So  the  Skoptsy  are  reputed  to  way- 
lay those  whom  they  hear  express  approbation  of  their  prin- 
ciples. It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  mass  of  peasants  know 
them  as  the  dark  sect.  Some  Russians  have  even  stated 
that  a  few  years  ago  the  Httle  Tsarevich,  heir  of  the  deposed 
Tsar,  was  temporarily  kidnapped  by  a  Skoptsy  nurse  who  had 
insinuated  herself  into  the  royal  household  and  was  ritually 
mutilated  by  her  co-rehgionists.     If  we  bear  in  mind  their  cult 


370  RUSSIAN  DISSENTERS 

of  Peter  III,  the  story  is  not  wholly  incredible.  They  may  have 
desired  to  rid  their  future  ruler  of  the  (f>p6vr}fia  aapKd<;  which  in 
the  persons  of  Adam  and  Eve  ruined  the  human  race,  and  as- 
pired to  render  him  Christ  and  Tsar  in  one.  As  our  French  his- 
torian, cited  above,  remarks,  the  modern  Russians  are  after  all : 
un  peuple  credule  et  epris  du  merveilleux,  un  peuple  esclave  et 
revant  de  vague  delivrance,  accueillant  avec  la  meme  naivete 
les  faux  tsars  et  les  faux  Christs. 

As  a  final  word  in  the  history  of  Russian  dissent  it  may  be 
noted  that  until  lately  there  existed,  and  perhaps  still  exists, 
a  Russian  sect,  fairly  numerous,  that  deified  Napoleon  I. 
In  their  meetings  they  bowed  before  his  picture  as  before  the 
ikon  of  a  saint,  burnt  incense,  sung  hymns  and  said  their 
prayers. 


Date  Due 


